Overloading the '->'(member access) operator

[Sayan Mukherjee]

Hi,

In the following code I am overloading the member
access operator '->' . But when I actually make a
member function call using '->', the message inside
the overloaded function does not show. The method
call works alright as if the operator was never
overloaded.

#include <iostream.h>
#include <string>

// ComplexNumber: class definition
class ComplexNumber
{
private:
    long X;
    long Y;
    
public:
    void Assign(long pX, long pY)
    {
        X = pX;
        Y = pY;
    }

    void Show(void)
    {
        cout << X << "+" << Y <<"i" << endl;
    }

    ComplexNumber* operator->(void)
    {
        cout << "Overloaded -> ..." << endl;
        return this;        
    }
};

// main()
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    ComplexNumber *pC1 = new ComplexNumber;

    pC1->Assign(8, 10);
    pC1->Show();

    delete pC1;

    return 0;
} 

[TheCPUWizard]

Of course,

You overloaded the operator -> for an OBJECT of type ComplexNumber.

Then you wrote code that used a POINTER to a Complex Number.

For fun, put the following in your test code and step into it.

ComplexNumber x;
x->Assign(1,2);

The above is NOT a syntax error, you defined a dereferencing operator for an object. This is typically considered "bizarre" behaviour. The same as

int operator +(SomeClass const &rhs)
{
   return m_value - rhs.m_value;
}

Of course the place where you WOULD want to implement the "->" operator is if you are implementing an object THAT SHOULD ACT LIKE A POINTER.

Do a search on "Smart Pointers" "auto_ptr" and the like for more information.