Thread: what is meant by -> ??

forgive me for such a n00b question but I have seen this symbol quite alot of times studying data structures n stuff... just didnt find the proper reference anywhere.

what does " -> " mean ?? can anybody explain me in detail ? or point me in the right direction ?

If you have a pointer to a structure, then to access its member values, you'd write:

Code:

struct something {
int x;
}

int main()
{
struct something *somePointer;
// initialize the pointer
printf("%d", (*somePointer).x);
}

Since you have to dereference that pointer each time you want to access "x", the smart guys invented a shortcut, which is somePointer->x !

Therefore:

(*pointer).someVariable == pointer->someVariable