Detour 1: Introducing the this pointer

Inside any member function, the this pointer points to the object whose member function this is. In this (made-up) example we need the this pointer to distinguish the private member value from the parameter value

class simple

{

int value;

public:

void setvalue(const int);

}

void simple::setvalue (const int value)

{

this->value = value;

}

int main()

{

simple s1;

simple s2;

s1.setvalue(1);

s2.setvalue(15);

return 0;

}

Inside this call, the this pointer used by setvalue refers to s1.

Inside this call, the this pointer used by setvalue refers to s2.

End of detour...

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