Question for why Pointers can't be assigned to Objects

[pghsteelers]

Why can you declare a pointer of type <classname> and assign it to an array of objects, but you can't assign it to individual objects without assigning it to the address of the individual object?

For example:

class CSomeClass
{
...
...
...
}

...
...
...

int main()

CSomeClass objname1;
CSomeClass objarray1[3];
CSomeClass* ptest;

ptest = &objname1; //excepted
ptest = objarray1; //excepted

ptest = objname1; //not excepted

...
...
...
return 0;
}

 

[pghsteelers]

Oh and I left out that when you assign the pointer to the array, you are actually assigning the pointer to the first element, which in it's own right is a separate object just residing in an array of objects.

 

[cpjust]

Pointers can only hold pointers. It's the same as asking why you can't assign a double to an int -- they're different types.

 

[pghsteelers]

So if you can only assign pointers to pointers, then where am i missing that assigning a pointer to an array follows suit?

 

[cpjust]

An array basically is a pointer. It's a pointer to the first element in the array. When you specify an element in the array, like arr[3] you are dereferencing that pointer and doing the same kind of thing as this:

*(arr + 3)

 

[pghsteelers]

Ah, thats right, thank you kindly for the break down.

 

[NullTerminator]

An array name is the same thing as the address of the first element. it is a pointer value in that it can't be moved, as opposed to a pointer variable.

++objarray; // illegal

if ptest pointed to allocated space,
you could assign objname1 to it like this
*ptest = objname1;

This would make ptest hold a copy of objname1