Question

I’m learning C++ and having trouble with pointers.
This simple project consists in a invoice that has a pointer to a customer.

Classes:

class Customer {
    string name;
public:
    Customer(string name) { this->name = name; };
    string getName() { return name; };
    void changeName(string name) { this->name = name; };
};

class Invoice {
    Customer * customer;
public:
    Invoice(Customer *customer) { this->customer = customer; };
    Customer getCustomer() { return *customer; };
};

Main:

Customer *customer1 = new Customer("Name 1");
Invoice invoice1(customer1);

cout << invoice1.getCustomer().getName() << endl; //Return:Name 1;

How can I use Customer::changeName(string name) in order to make this work:

(...) changeName("Name 2");

cout << invoice1.getCustomer().getName() << endl; //Return:Name 2;

I don’t know what I should use to change the customer’s name. Or maybe I’m doing something wrong in the class Invoice.

Why change the name through Invoice?
So I can learn how I can learn how to use the pointer before the project starts getting big.
Later I’m going to have a vector of Invoices and a vector of Customers. Getting the pointer to a Customer from a Invoice or from a vector of Customers should be the same.

Thank you,
Eduardo

Answer 1

In Invoice, return the pointer to the Customer itself, rather than a copy of its dereferenced value:

Customer* getCustomer() { return customer; };

Then you can change the name like so, and the change will affect the actual Customer object:

invoice1.getCustomer()->changeName("Name2")