Question

Does it possible to invoke a procedure via pointer? I haven’t found anything about it on the internet, but the following experimental code compiles without warnings.

#include <iostream>
#include <ctime>

using namespace std;

void PrintCurrentClock()
{
    cout<<clock()<<endl;
}

void PrintCurrentTimeStamp()
{
    cout<<time(0)<<endl;
}


int main()
{
    void* pF = PrintCurrentClock;

    pF;

    pF = PrintCurrentTimeStamp;

    pF;

    system("Pause");
    return 0;
}

The output is empty, as if the *pF was somewhat “transparent”.

Answer 1

Both C and C++ have function pointers that let you do what you are looking for:

void (*pf)(void);
pf = FunctionWithVeryVeryVeryLongNameThatPrintsTheCurrentClockStateUsingStdCoutOutputStream;
pf();

The void in parentheses is optional.

The reason you did not find anything on the topic is that for historic reasons both functions and procedures in C are called functions (the reason is that there were no void in the original language – procedures returned int by default, and the return value was ignored). C++ inherited this naming convention.