this Pointer

Article
01/03/2018

The latest version of this topic can be found at this Pointer.

The this pointer is a pointer accessible only within the nonstatic member functions of a class, struct, or union type. It points to the object for which the member function is called. Static member functions do not have a this pointer.

Syntax

  
      this   
this->member-identifier

Remarks

An object's this pointer is not part of the object itself; it is not reflected in the result of a sizeof statement on the object. Instead, when a nonstatic member function is called for an object, the address of the object is passed by the compiler as a hidden argument to the function. For example, the following function call:

myDate.setMonth( 3 );

can be interpreted this way:

setMonth( &myDate, 3 );

The object's address is available from within the member function as the this pointer. Most uses of this are implicit. It is legal, though unnecessary, to explicitly use this when referring to members of the class. For example:

void Date::setMonth( int mn )  
{  
   month = mn;            // These three statements  
   this->month = mn;      // are equivalent  
   (*this).month = mn;  
}

The expression *this is commonly used to return the current object from a member function:

return *this;

The this pointer is also used to guard against self-reference:

if (&Object != this) {  
// do not execute in cases of self-reference

Note

Because the this pointer is nonmodifiable, assignments to this are not allowed. Earlier implementations of C++ allowed assignments to this.

Occasionally, the this pointer is used directly — for example, to manipulate self-referential data structures, where the address of the current object is required.

Example

// this_pointer.cpp  
// compile with: /EHsc  
  
#include <iostream>  
#include <string.h>  
  
using namespace std;  
  
class Buf   
{  
public:  
    Buf( char* szBuffer, size_t sizeOfBuffer );  
    Buf& operator=( const Buf & );  
    void Display() { cout << buffer << endl; }  
  
private:  
    char*   buffer;  
    size_t  sizeOfBuffer;  
};  
  
Buf::Buf( char* szBuffer, size_t sizeOfBuffer )  
{  
    sizeOfBuffer++; // account for a NULL terminator  
  
    buffer = new char[ sizeOfBuffer ];  
    if (buffer)  
    {  
        strcpy_s( buffer, sizeOfBuffer, szBuffer );  
        sizeOfBuffer = sizeOfBuffer;  
    }  
}  
  
Buf& Buf::operator=( const Buf &otherbuf )   
{  
    if( &otherbuf != this )   
    {  
        if (buffer)  
            delete [] buffer;  
  
        sizeOfBuffer =  strlen( otherbuf.buffer ) + 1;   
        buffer = new char[sizeOfBuffer];  
        strcpy_s( buffer, sizeOfBuffer, otherbuf.buffer );  
    }  
    return *this;  
}  
  
int main()  
{  
    Buf myBuf( "my buffer", 10 );  
    Buf yourBuf( "your buffer", 12 );  
  
    // Display 'my buffer'  
    myBuf.Display();  
  
    // assignment opperator  
    myBuf = yourBuf;  
  
    // Display 'your buffer'  
    myBuf.Display();  
}

my buffer  
your buffer

Type of the this pointer

The this pointer's type can be modified in the function declaration by the const and volatile keywords. To declare a function as having the attributes of one or more of these keywords, add the keyword(s) after the function argument list.

Consider this example:

// type_of_this_pointer1.cpp  
class Point  
{  
    unsigned X() const;  
};  
int main()  
{  
}

The preceding code declares a member function, X, in which the this pointer is treated as a const pointer to a const object. Combinations of cv-mod-list options can be used, but they always modify the object pointed to by this, not the this pointer itself. Therefore, the following declaration declares function X; the this pointer is a const pointer to a const object:

// type_of_this_pointer2.cpp  
class Point  
{  
    unsigned X() const;  
};  
int main()  
{  
}

The type of this in a member function is described by the following syntax, where cv-qualifier-list is determined from the member functions declarator and can be const or volatile (or both), and class-type is the name of the class:

[cv-qualifier-list] class-type * const this

In other words, this is always a const pointer; it cannot be reassigned. The const or volatile qualifiers used in the member function declaration apply to the class instance pointed to by this in the scope of that function.

The following table explains more about how these modifiers work.

Semantics of this Modifiers

Modifier	Meaning
const	Cannot change member data; cannot invoke member functions that are not const.
`volatile`	Member data is loaded from memory each time it is accessed; disables certain optimizations.

It is an error to pass a const object to a member function that is not const. Similarly, it is an error to pass a volatile object to a member function that is not volatile.

Member functions declared as const cannot change member data — in such functions, the this pointer is a pointer to a const object.