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In C++ pointers to non-static members of a class can be defined. If a class C has a member T a then &C::a is a pointer to the member a of type T C::*. This member can be an object or a function. [16] They can be used on the right-hand side of operators .* and ->* to access the corresponding member.
C# has and allows pointers to selected types (some primitives, enums, strings, pointers, and even arrays and structs if they contain only types that can be pointed [14]) in unsafe context: methods and codeblock marked unsafe. These are syntactically the same as pointers in C and C++. However, runtime-checking is disabled inside unsafe blocks.
Many languages have explicit pointers or references. Reference types differ from these in that the entities they refer to are always accessed via references; for example, whereas in C++ it's possible to have either a std:: string and a std:: string *, where the former is a mutable string and the latter is an explicit pointer to a mutable string (unless it's a null pointer), in Java it is only ...
In C++, classes can be forward-declared if you only need to use the pointer-to-that-class type (since all object pointers are the same size, and this is what the compiler cares about). This is especially useful inside class definitions, e.g. if a class contains a member that is a pointer (or a reference) to another class.
When an object is created, a pointer to this table, called the virtual table pointer, vpointer or VPTR, is added as a hidden member of this object. As such, the compiler must also generate "hidden" code in the constructors of each class to initialize a new object's virtual table pointer to the address of its class's virtual method table.
Although function pointers in C and C++ can be implemented as simple addresses, so that typically sizeof(Fx)==sizeof(void *), member pointers in C++ are sometimes implemented as "fat pointers", typically two or three times the size of a simple function pointer, in order to deal with virtual methods and virtual inheritance [citation needed].
Note that, when there is a data member that is a pointer or reference to another object, then it is possible to mutate the object pointed to or referenced only within a non-const method. C++ also provides abstract (as opposed to bitwise) immutability via the mutable keyword, which lets a member variable be changed from within a const method.
C++11 introduces the thread_local [3] keyword which can be used in the following cases Namespace level (global) variables; File static variables; Function static variables; Static member variables; Aside from that, various compiler implementations provide specific ways to declare thread-local variables: