Thread: Pointer to member function

Hi,

I'm trying to pass pointers to member functions around in my code.

The test with pointers to non-member function works fine:

Code:

void callOut( void (*callback)() )
{
	callback();
}

void testOut()
{
	cout << "testOut hier" << endl;
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	callOut( &testOut );
}

Now if I try it with a member function:

Code:

class A
{
public:
	void out()
	{
		cout << "A here " << endl;
	}
}; 
 
void callOut( void (A::*callback)() )
{
	callback();
	// error: must use ‘.*’ or ‘->*’ to call pointer-to-member
	// function in ‘callback (...)’
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	A* a = new A;
	callOut( &a->out );
	// error: ISO C++ forbids taking the address of a bound
	// member function to form a pointer to 
	// member function. Say ‘&A::out’
}

So gcc says it's impossible to use pointers to member function. But I found some tutorials talking about them (but didn't understood them )

Is it possible? And if yes could you please correct my example code?

Background is I'm implementing a finite state machine and the output function of the states are virtual methods of subclasses of an ABC, so pointers to member functions (of the correct derived type) seemed to do the job.
If you say pointer to member fuctions doesn't work in C++, do you know some better idiom to use for this purpose?

tank you very much!

to call a member function you need an object.
e.g. like this

Code:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class A
{
public:
	void out()
	{
		cout << "A here " << endl;
	}
}; 
 
void callOut( A*a, void (A::*callback)() )
{
	(a->*callback)();
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	A* a = new A;
	callOut( a, &A::out );
}

Kurt

Thank you both, worked great!