Re: In map iterator is there a difference between (*iter).second and iter->second?

From:
pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:42:00 +0200
Message-ID:
<7c7iacdnvb.fsf@pbourguignon.anevia.com>
"Mike Wahler" <mkwahler@mkwahler.net> writes:

"puzzlecracker" <ironsel2000@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8114115f-8075-4f7b-891d-298b48b9a383@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...

I see that a lot of former in the code, and wonder if there is a
technical reason for that


You're asking about language syntax, this is
not specific to map or iterators.

Given a pointer to a class or struct:

struct T
{
    int member;
};

and a pointer to one of these structs:
T obj;
T *p(&obj);

The two expressions:

(*p).member

and

p->member

have exactly the same meaning.

The '->' form is 'shorthand' for the (*). form.


Yes, but given a different class, they may be different:

#include <iostream>

class A {
public: int x;
};

class P {
public:
    A a1;
    A a2;

    A& operator*(){ return(a1); }
    A* operator->(){ return(&a2); }
};

using namespace std;

int main(void){
    P p;
    p.a1.x=1;
    p.a2.x=2;
    cout<<"p->x = "<<p->x<<" ; (*p).x = "<<(*p).x<<endl;
    return(0);
}

/*
-*- mode: compilation; default-directory: "~/src/tests-c++/" -*-
Compilation started at Wed Aug 20 11:40:06

SRC="/home/pjb/src/tests-c++/memb.c++" ; EXE="memb" ; g++ -g3 -ggdb3 -o ${EXE} ${SRC} && ./${EXE} && echo status = $?
p->x = 2 ; (*p).x = 1
status = 0

Compilation finished at Wed Aug 20 11:40:07
 */

Why someone used the latter over the former I
don't know. Perhaps a 'style' issue, or possibly
that's what a code generator created.


Or perhaps they mean different things.

--
__Pascal Bourguignon__

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