Have you ever wanted to use a pointer to a class method?  This might be basic C++ but I couldn’t remember how to do it, and spent some time Googling and messing around to figure it out.  So here’s the way:

To define a pointer to a class method:

returnval (myclass::*method)(parameters…)

For example:

char *(myclass::*pmethod)(int parm);

This defines a pointer named pmethod to a method of the myclass class.  The method has a single int parameter and returns a char*.

To assign a value to the pointer:

pmethod = &myclass::method;

For example:

pmethod = &myclass::mymethod;

This sets pmethod to point to mymethod.

To call the class method:

(myobject.*method)(parameters…)

For example:

mychar = (myobject.*pmethod)(myint);

This calls the method pointed to by pmethod.

The pointer can itself be in a struct or class as well.  For example:

struct {                      // processing table

char  *name;

char  *(myclass::*pmethod)(int parm);

} proctbl[] = {

{ “text”,  &myclass::mymethod},

{ “text2”,&myclass::anothermethod}

};

This defines a table of structures with two entries, each of which has a method pointer.  The function can then be called as follows:

mychar = (myobject.*proctbl[index].pmethod)(myint);

In this example, the pointer proctbl[index].pmethod identifies the method to be called.

Note that “::*” and “.*” are actually separate operators in C++.  There is also a “->*” operator.

You might never need this, but just in case you do…