C++ Pointers with classes

Question

My programming professor requested that we:

• declare a pointer and a Grade variable
• store the variable's address in the pointer variable
• Call the corresponding functions to print the output. (Refer to the functions using the pointer notation, e.g, ptr->function())

However, I'm a little confused. The "Grade" variable is a class variable, but how do I declare the pointer? Do I declare the pointer as an int?

So I would have something like:

int *ptr;
Grade grade;
ptr = &grade;

Answer 1

You declared a pointer to int.
Declaring a pointer to a type is always:

type * ptr;

With that in mind:

Grade grade;
Grade *ptr;
ptr = &grade;
// use
ptr->function();

Answer 2

If you want a pointer to a class T, just write T* foo, just as you would expect. So all in all:

//Declare Pointer and grade Variable:
Grade grade;
Grade* ptr;

//Store variable's address in pointer:
ptr = &grade;

//Call function:
ptr->function();

Answer 3

You're very close. But, you declared a pointer to an integer. That's what int * means. What you want is a pointer to Grade:

Grade* ptr;

The rest of what you wrote looks correct so far.

Once you have ptr = &grade;, you can then call methods in grade by saying ptr->foo() in place of grade.foo(). Both will call the method foo() on the variable grade.