Overloaded Class Member Access

An expression containing the class member access -> ( arrow) operator has syntax of the form:

      identifier -> name-expression

and is considered a unary operator. The operator function operator->() must be defined as a nonstatic member function.

The following restrictions apply to class member access operators:

• You cannot declare an overloaded arrow operator that is a nonmember function.
• You cannot overload the class member access . (dot) operator.

Consider the following example of overloading the -> ( arrow) operator:

class Y
{
public:
      void f();
};
class X
{
public:
      Y* operator->();
};
X x;
x->f();

Here x->f() is interpreted as: ( x.operator->() )-> f() .

x .operator->() must return either a reference to a class object or a class object for which the overloaded operator-> function is defined or a pointer to any class. If the overloaded operator-> function returns a class type, the class type must not be the same as the class declaring the function, and the class type returned must contain its own definition of an overloaded -> operator function.

Arrow Operator