CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++
radiantshaw
radiantshaw

Reputation: 545

Returning array of character error in c++?

I have these two files table.cpp and table.h in my program code apart from the main.cpp. The files are described as below

table.cpp

#include <iostream>
#include "table.h"

using namespace std;

// accessor function for Name
char* PeriodicTable::Name()
{
    return Name;
}

// accessor function for Symbol
char* PeriodicTable::Symbol()
{
    return Symbol;
}

table.h

#ifndef TABLE_H
#define TABLE_H

class PeriodicTable
{
    char Name[15], Symbol[3], GroupName[20], Block, State[25], Colour[15], Classification[20];
    int GroupNo, AtomicNo, PeriodNo;
    float Weight;

public:

    char* Name();
    char* Symbol();


};

#endif

but the problem is that the IntelliSense(since I am using Visual C++ Express 2010) shows a red curved underline below the name and symbol in the accessor function in table.cpp. I can't understand why???

Upvotes: 0

Views: 69

Answers (1)

pmr
pmr

Reputation: 59811

Your member functions and member variables have the same name. This is not possible in C++. That's why various conventions exist for naming member variables, e.g. m_name, name_ etc. (NB: When dealing with underscores in identifiers make sure you don't use a reserved name by accident.)

You might wonder why and how that could possibly go wrong. In your example there clearly is no way to invoke operator() on char[15], but the problem is that the compiler only knows that after performing semantic analysis. There could also be cases where it is impossible to disambiguate. For example:

struct Func {
  void operator()() { };
};

struct C {
  Func f;
  void f() {}
};

int main() {
  C c;
  c.f(); // which one?
}

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions