The type of this pointer is either ClassName * or const ClassName *, depending on whether it is inspected inside a non-const or const method of the class ClassName. Pointer this is not an lvalue. class ClassName { void foo() { // here `this` has `ClassName *` type } void bar() const { // here … Read more
So is the this pointer just a compile time thing and not an actual pointer? It very much is a run time thing. It refers to the object on which the member function is invoked, naturally that object can exist at run time. What is a compile time thing is how name lookup works. When … Read more
The easiest way is to think of this as being a hidden extra argument that is always passed automatically. So, a fictional method like: size_t String::length(void) const { return strlen(m_string); } is actually more like this under the hood: size_t String__length(const String *this) { return strlen(this->m_string); } and a call like: { String example(“hello”); cout … Read more
There is std::enable_shared_from_this just for this purpose. You inherit from it and you can call .shared_from_this() from inside the class. Also, you are creating circular dependencies here that can lead to resource leaks. That can be resolved with the use of std::weak_ptr. So your code might look like this (assuming children rely on existence of … Read more