When is 'this' required?
<p>Is the <code>this</code> pointer ever required? I guess you'd need it if you were functionally passing around the instance of the class pointed to by <code>this</code>.  But in terms of setting/retrieving/calling/whatever members, is <code>this</code> always optional?</p>

<p>I've tagged this C++ because that's the language I'm specifically wondering about, but if someone can confirm that the construct is the same for Java and other OO languages that use a <code>this</code> pointer, it'd be appreciated.</p>
