Dot (.) vs. Arrow (->) Operators in C : When to Use Which?

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Understanding Dot (.) and Arrow (->) Operators in C

The dot (.) operator and arrow (->) operator are both used in C to access members of classes and structs. However, there are some key differences between the two.

Usage:

• Dot (.) operator: Used with objects to directly access class members.
• Arrow (->) operator: Used with pointers to objects or to access virtual functions.

Relationship:

• foo->bar() is equivalent to (*foo).bar().

Parentheses:

• Parentheses around foo are required because the dot operator has higher precedence than the dereference operator .

Overloading:

• Dot operator cannot be overloaded.
• Arrow operator can be overloaded.

Pointers:

• Dot operator cannot be applied to pointers.
• Arrow operator can be applied to pointers to access members of a class or struct.

Example:

class MyClass {
    public:
        int x;
};

int main() {
    MyClass obj;
    obj.x = 10;  // using dot operator

    MyClass* ptr = &obj;
    ptr->x = 15;  // using arrow operator
}

In this example, the dot operator is used to access the x member of the obj object. The arrow operator is used to access the x member of the ptr pointer.

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