| title |
Member Access | Microsoft Docs |
| ms.custom |
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| ms.date |
11/04/2016 |
| ms.reviewer |
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| ms.suite |
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| ms.technology |
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| ms.tgt_pltfrm |
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| ms.topic |
language-reference |
| dev_langs |
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| helpviewer_keywords |
member-selection operators |
pointers, smart |
member access, overloaded operators |
operator overloading, member access operators |
smart pointers, definition |
smart pointers |
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| ms.assetid |
8c7b2c43-eb92-4d42-9a8e-61aa37d71333 |
| caps.latest.revision |
9 |
| author |
mikeblome |
| ms.author |
mblome |
| manager |
ghogen |
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cs-cz |
de-de |
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fr-fr |
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Class member access can be controlled by overloading the member access operator (->). This operator is considered a unary operator in this usage, and the overloaded operator function must be a class member function. Therefore, the declaration for such a function is:
Remarks
where class-type is the name of the class to which this operator belongs. The member access operator function must be a nonstatic member function.
This operator is used (often in conjunction with the pointer-dereference operator) to implement "smart pointers" that validate pointers prior to dereference or count usage.
The . member access operator cannot be overloaded.
Operator Overloading