Passing object by reference

[DomBavetta]

I have this method that takes a pointer to a class object and right now its returning the location in memory 0x100300000. I've tried tweaking the function in a few different ways but I cant get it to return the object instead of the location.


Here's the vector that addSale accesses and the deceleration of the addSale ethod in the employee class.

class Employee{
protected:
    ....
public: 
    vector<Insurance *> sale_list; // holders pointers to the abstract Insurance class objects
    // Adds sale object to a list of all that empoyees sales
    void addSale( Insurance * );
    virtual ostream &print_employee_sales( ostream & ) = 0;
};

namespace printSales {
    ostream &operator<<( ostream &, Employee & );
}

Defintion of addSale

void Employee::addSale(Insurance *i){
    sale_list.push_back(i);  // would like to pass i by reference (&i)
}

When I call it in the main I do so like this

int main() {
    Insurance *a = new Auto("John", "Smith", "ford", "mustang", 123456, 50, 76);
    Employee *e = new Manager("Bob", "Smith", 32000);
    e->addSale(a);
    printSales::operator<<(cout, *e); // returns  0x100300000
return 0;
}

UPDATE: this is what one of the print functions looks like
This is found in Employee.cpp

ostream &printSales::operator<<( ostream &strm, Employee &e ){
    // Virtual print
    cout<< "Employee Sales" << endl;
    return e.print_employee_sales( strm );
}

and this in in Manager.cpp

ostream &Manager::print_employee_sales( ostream &strm ){
    strm << "-Sale information- " << endl;
    strm << "  List of Sales : " << endl;
        // Prints the stored list of sales for that employee
        Insurance *temp;
        for(int i = 0; i < sale_list.size(); ++i){
            temp = sale_list.at(i);
            strm<< temp << endl;
        }
    
    strm<< endl;
    return strm;
}

[AbstractionAnon]

The first two snippets look fine.

main.cpp line 4 is bogus. You're trying to pass an Insurance object (*a), but addSale is expecting a pointer to an Insurance object (just a). Since this would cause a compile error, I'm assuming this is a typo.

What do you mean :returning the location in memory? addSale is a void function. It doesn't return anything. Do you mean the value of e is 0x100300000 ?

Also, I see nothing in your code about returning something by reference, which is what you state in your title.

Other than those comments, there's not enough information here.

[DomBavetta]

Yes that was a typo, and it would return 0x100300000 when i printed it, I didn't put the print function in this example because i didnt think it was needed. And i meant i wanted to return the reference in addSale(method). Like sale_list.push_back(&i); but that doesnt work..

[AbstractionAnon]

manager.cpp line 8 is suspicious. temp is a pointer (assuming it's not a typo), so you're going to output the value of the pointer.

What you want to print is the object, not the pointer:

  strm << *temp << endl;  // Note the * to dereference the pointer 

[DomBavetta]

Ahh that worked, I tried that earlier but I mixed up the uses of * and &. I implemented it with & instead. Thank you, I think I need to brush up more on my knowledge of pointers haha!