The -> Operator

[keifer]

I'm still rather new to both c++ and qt4, so please bear with me. My question is what exactly does the -> operator do? I've looked in both the Qt4 Tutorial and my copy of the C++ Primer, and I've yet to find anything on it.

Basically I wish to know why:

myButton->setEnabled(!text.isEmtpy());

myButton->setEnabled(!text.isEmtpy());

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differs from:

myButton.setEnabled(!text.isEmpty());

myButton.setEnabled(!text.isEmpty());

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[jacek]

a->b is equivalent of (*a).b (in other words: it allows you to access members of a class or structure if you have a pointer to it).

In your example, the first myButton variable is a pointer to an object, while the second one is the object itself.