Question

In below code snippet, although pointer is not initialized the call is still made successfully

temp *ptr;
ptr->func2();

Is it due to C++ language property, or it is VC++6 compiler which is foul playing?

class temp {
public:
    temp():a(9){}
    int& func1()
    {
        return a;
    }
    bool func2(int arg)
    {
        if(arg%2==0)
            return true;
        return false;
    }
    int a;
};

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    temp *ptr;
    int a;
    cin>>a;
    if(ptr->func2(a))
    {
        cout<<"Good poniner"<<endl;
    }
    ptr->func1(); // Does not crash here
    int crashere=ptr->func1();// But does crash here 
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

The C++ compiler doesn’t prevent you from using uninitialised pointers, and although the results are undefined, it’s normal for compilers in the real world to generate code that ignores the fact that the pointer is uninitialised.

It’s one of the reasons why C++ is both fast and (comparatively) dangerous relative to some other languages.

The reason your call to func2 succeeds is that it doesn’t touch its this pointer. The pointer value is never used, so it can’t cause a problem. In func1 you do use the this pointer (to access a member variable), which is why that one crashes.