Accessing Instance Variables

You can read the values of an instance variable using the same syntax we used to write them:

The expression blank.x means "go to the object named blank and get the value of x." In this case we assign that value to a local variable named x. Notice that there is no conflict between the local variable named x and the instance variable named x. The purpose of dot notation is to identify which variable you are referring to unambiguously.

You can use dot notation as part of any C++ expression, so the following are legal.

The first line outputs 3, 4; the second line calculates the value 25.