Stupid Newbie question

This was originally posted in the C discussion board. I was told to bring it here. :) My background is a Delphi programmer, who did C a very long time ago. Recently, I have started developing software in C for hand held terminals, and it's taking me some getting used to using C again ....

My question is as follows:

Yet another stupid question ...

What does the double colon do in the following function declaration? I have looked at the Borland C++ language reference, and it talks about the "scope access operator", but I don't understand how that applies here ...

Code:

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bool O_Comms::Init (PORT_TYPE port, COMM_PARAM_STRUCT* psComParam)

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It means that there is a class O_Comms and Init is its member function. This is how you define member functions (outside the class declaration).

You need to look up a tutorial on the basics of classes in C++.

:) Thanks for your reply.

I'm not using C++. The devices I am programming for have extremely limited memory (1024 - 4096 k), and dynamic memory allocation is a big no - no for me. The function was given to me as an example.

You don't need a dynamic memory allocation when creating an instance of a class. It can be on the stack just as a plain C-style struct instance.

Code:

---

class X {...};

int main()
{
    X x; //this is not dynamically allocated
}

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Of course, if you are planning to work in C, understanding C++ syntax for classes doesn't seem very relevant.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by anon

You don't need a dynamic memory allocation when creating an instance of a class. It can be on the stack just as a plain C-style struct instance.

Code:

---

class X {...};

int main()
{
    X x; //this is not dynamically allocated
}

---

Of course, if you are planning to work in C, understanding C++ syntax for classes doesn't seem very relevant.

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Thank you very much indeed! I was not aware of your first comment (there is a lot I am not aware of ... :D), and it's a very big help to me.