   "this" POINTER?
  Can somebody tell me what this-Pointer is used for?And why is used only with references and overloading operators?  
  In C++ all instances of a class or struct have a this pointer which points to themselves, which is useful if it wants to pass itself to another function or, in the case of operator overloading, return a reference to itself.  ;  The this pointer is a pointer to the current instance of a class or struct.You will only see the "this" pointer used inside of a member function. Its common to use "this" in when overriding operators because many times you are operating doing operations on the current class/struct. Here is a common exampleVector& Vector::operator*=(const float fScalar){m_fX *= fScalar;m_fY *= fScalar;m_fZ *= fScalar;return *this;}Vector Vector::operator*(const float fScalar) const{return Vector (*this)*=fScalar;}Journal[edited by - Garrland on March 4, 2003 12:32:28 PM];  Why I have to return a reference to the this pointer instead of the pointer.I have to do this:Counter& Counter::operator++(){++itsVal;return *this;}  Why I cant do this:   Counter* Counter::operator++(){++itsVal;return this;}  [edited by - tolueno on March 4, 2003 12:54:46 PM][edited by - tolueno on March 4, 2003 12:55:57 PM];  Because then you''d have to dereference the result of the ++ operator which would lead to ugly syntax.  