Question

In my header file, I have the following:

private:
     ImagePixmapItem *item;

In a function, I create a new ImagePixmapItem like so:

ImagePixmapItem *item(static_cast<ImagePixmapItem *>(scene.addPixmap(p)));

However, this creates a local copy of item.
but if I do this:

*item(static_cast<ImagePixmapItem *>(scene.addPixmap(p)));

I get the following error:

error: ‘((ViewerMain*)this)->ViewerMain::item’ cannot be used as a function

So what is the correct way to make this call?

Answer 1

An initialization like

item(static_cast<ImagePixmapItem *>(scene.addPixmap(p)));

is only allowed within the declaration of your variable (this is in fact your first example with a local variable), or (for member fields) in the constructor initialization list:

ViewerMain::ViewerMain() :
  item(static_cast<ImagePixmapItem *>(scene.addPixmap(p)))
{
  ... 
}

Inside a member function, just assign to it:

item = static_cast<ImagePixmapItem *>(scene.addPixmap(p));

(Since it is private, it is not accessible from a nonmember function, except if it is friend of the class.)