About pointer to member function of derived class

Question

Here's my code, and the IDE is DEV C++11

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

class A{
    public:
        int a=15;
};
class B:public A
{

};
int main(){

    int A::*ptr=&B::a; //OK
    int B::*ptr1=&A::a; //why?
    int B::A::*ptr2=&B::a;//why?
    int B::A::*ptr3=&A::a;  //why?

}

I have read Programming Languages — C++ and I know the type of &B::a is int A::*, but I don't realise why the next three lines will pass the compilation. And the weirdest thing to me is the syntax of int B::A::* , what's the meaning of this? I'm just a newcomer of C/C++, so please tolerate my weird question.

@Ron Ahem.. It **is** [mcve]. `ptr` is of type `int A::*`, `ptr2` is of type `int B::A::*`, etc.. As you can see: the code posted by OP [compiles just fine](http://ideone.com/Cz2Bmg), they are just confused about **why** it compiles. — Algirdas Preidžius, Jul 21 '17 at 14:33
I would assume that the `int B::A::*` is just a level of indirection that is actually `int A::*`. — Ron, Jul 21 '17 at 15:32

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 21 '17 at 15:25

Diagram representation may help you understand why it is ok and compiles

Interesting will be once you reinitialize the same variable in inherited class

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

class A {
public:
    int a = 15;
};
class B :public A
{
public:
    int a = 10;
};
int main() {

    int A::*ptr = &B::a; //Waring class B a value of type int B::* cannot be 
                         //used to initialize an entity of type 'int A::*'
    int B::*ptr1 = &A::a; // why?
    int B::A::*ptr2 = &B::a;//Waring class B a value of type int B::* cannot                            
                      // be used to initialize an entity of type 'int A::*'
    int B::A::*ptr3 = &A::a;  //why?

}

About pointer to member function of derived class

1 Answers1