Question

I have the following in an implementation file…

void ClientList::interestCompare(vector<string> intr)
{
    for(int index = 0; index < intr.size(); index++)
    {
        this->interests[index];  
    }
}

and this in the specification file…

class ClientList
{
private:
// A structure for the list
struct ListNode
    {
        char gender;
        string name;
        string phone;
        int numInterests; // The number of interests for the client
        vector<string> interests; // list of interests
        string match;
        struct ListNode *next;  // To point to the next node
    }; 
//more stuff
...}

is it possible to use the “this” pointer to access the “interests” vector in the struct?

If so how.

As I have it now, I initialize a ListNode pointer to head in order to access the list. I’m just wondering if the “this” pointer can only access members of the class, or if they can access deeper ADT variables embedded in the class.

Does that question even make sense?

Answer 1

You only declared a ListNode type inside ClientList class which doesn’t mean you have a instance of ClientList. As you hare using std::vector already, you could use std::vector or std::list instead of implementing another list

class ClientList
{
private:
// A structure for the list
  struct Client
  {
    char gender;
    std::string name;
    std::string phone;
    int numInterests; // The number of interests for the client
    std::vector<string> interests; // list of interests
    std::string match;
   }; 
   std::vector<Client> clients;
  //more stuff
};

Edit:

If you want to compare two lists, use std::set_intersection, it requires two containers to be sorted in place.

void ClientList::FindClientHasCommonInterest(const vector<string>& intr)
{
   for(auto client = clients.begin(); client != clients.end(); ++client)
   {
      std::vector<std::string> intereste_in_common;
       std::set_intersection((*client).begin(), (*client).end(), 
                             intr.begin(), intr.end(), 
                             std::back_inserter(intereste_in_common));
       if (intereste_in_common.size() >= 3)
       {
            // find one client
       }
   }  
}