So a period, a hyphen and a greater than symbol walk in a bar…

The bartender looks up and says: “Is this some kind of a joke?”  Nope, just my blog.

The period, that’s right, the thing at the end of a sentence. Then, separately, the hyphen and greater than symbol working together.

See that the explanation at:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/b930c881(v=vs.80).aspx

How to use this information?  Here is some code, just plain old C++, running in VS 11 on Windows 8.  Not a big deal, not complicated, just what you would use in class. 

 #include <iostream>

 using namespace std;

 struct StructureExample{

    StructureExample(int i, int j, int k) : firstvariable(i), secondvariable(j), thirdvariable(k){}

    int secondvariable;

    int firstvariable;

    int thirdvariable;

 };

 int main() {

    StructureExample theStructureExample(1,1,1900);

    theStructureExample.secondvariable = 2;   

    //Use of the period for dereferencing, similar to C# or VB

    cout  << theStructureExample.secondvariable 

          << " *** " << theStructureExample.firstvariable

          << " *** " << theStructureExample.thirdvariable 

          << endl;

    //There are more efficient ways to do this, used for simplicity

    StructureExample *theStructureExample2 = new StructureExample(1,1,2000);

    //Use of the hyphen followed by greater than symbol

    //for dereferencing, similar to C# or VB

    theStructureExample2->secondvariable = 2;

    cout  << theStructureExample2->secondvariable 

          << "/" << theStructureExample2->firstvariable

          << "/" << theStructureExample2->thirdvariable 

          << endl;

    delete theStructureExample2;

    //holds the console window open, there are other ways

    system("Pause");

 }