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What is this Pointer? Give an example.

Author: Tanmay Chakrabarty

First Published On: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 at 1:55 PM
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The this Pointer: When a function of a class is called by an object of that class, each variable gets an pointer which points to that calling object, meaning that this variable was called by that object or this variable is under that object. This pointer is called this pointer. To clarify consider the following lines of codes,


 
int pointer::example(int i, int j){
 a=i;     //line 1
 b=j;     //line 2
 if (a>b)
  return a;   //line 3
 else
  return b;   //line 4
 }

void main(){
 pointer ob1;
 cout<<ob1.example(15,12);
 }
Actually each variable of line 1,2,3,4 is having pointer to the object ob1. This was not shown above. The actual form of lines 1,2,3,4 will be then as follows,

this->a=i;   //line 1
this->b=j;   //line 2
return this->a;  //line 3
return this->b;  //line 4

The this pointer is important when operators are overloaded and whenever a member function must utilize a pointer to the object that invoked it. 

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