Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!adm!stanonik@nprdc.arpa
From: stanonik@nprdc.arpa (Ron Stanonik)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: why p->member ?
Message-ID: <16734@adm.ARPA>
Date: 4 Aug 88 14:35:01 GMT
Sender: news@adm.ARPA
Lines: 21

While explaining pointers to structures someone asked why
the -> operator was needed; ie, why couldn't the members be
referenced as p.member.  My first response was, we're talking
about pointers to structures, not structures, so a separate
operator is needed.  On second thought though, since the
compiler knows whether the variable is a pointer or structure,
why shouldn't the compiler do the "right" thing when it sees
p.member?

Could this ever be ambiguous?  That is, is there some declaration
of p such that p could be interpreted as both a structure and
a pointer to a separate structure.  I tried fiddling around
with unions, but could not produce such an object.

Does it make a lot more work for the compiler?  It doesn't
seem so, since it's already keeping track of p's type.

Thanks,

Ron Stanonik
stanonik@nprdc.arpa