When to Use the Dot, Arrow, or Double Colon Operator for Class Member Access in C ?

When to Use a Dot, Arrow, or Double Colon to Refer to Class Members in C

In C , three operators are used to access class members: double colon (::), dot (.), and arrow (->). Each operator serves specific scenarios, providing valuable information about the variables involved.

Double Colon (::)

The double colon syntax (a::b) indicates that b is a member of class or namespace a. In this case, a represents a class or namespace name, and b must be a class member or nested namespace.

Dot (.)

The dot operator (a.b) is employed when b is a member of the object or reference a. Here, a must be an object or reference to an object of a class, and b must be a member of that class.

Arrow (->)

The arrow operator (->) initially functioned as a shorthand for (*a).b but has since gained the ability to be overloaded. If a is an object of a class that overloads the -> operator (such as smart pointers and iterators), the arrow operator's behavior is determined by the class's implementation. In general, when a is a pointer, b represents a member of the pointed-to object. Conversely, if a is an object of a class that overrides ->, the overloaded operator function operator->() is invoked.

The above is the detailed content of When to Use the Dot, Arrow, or Double Colon Operator for Class Member Access in C ?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!