Access to STL lists of pointers to objects - c++

Question

I wonder how to get access to element of list that contains pointers to objects. I want to achieve that without dereferencing. Propably it will be much easier if i just show what i want. So I have list:
list<ObjectClass*> nameOfObject;
and I have method:
bool collision(list<ObjectClass*>::iterator&);
And inside definition of that method I have:
{
if((*nameOfObject)->getSprite()) return true;
else return false;
}
What i want is to getSprite without needing to dereference nameOfObject inside method, so something like that:
{
if((nameOfObject)->getSprite()) return true;
else return false;
}
Everything that i tried is not working. I thought that it would be easy but i really don;t get it. Any ideas? I will add that list has to contain pointer to the objects, because of polimorphysm.

Answer 1

list<ObjectClass*>::iterator&
It's unclear why iterator is passed by reference.
*nameOfObject
This is ill-formed because std::list doesn't have indirection operator. I suspect that you may have shadowed that variable, and forgotten to include the shadowing variable in the example.
What i want is to getSprite without needing to dereference nameOfObject inside method,
Then you need to have an instance of a class with getSprite member function in the class rather than a pointer/iterator to such. If you do have a pointer/iterator, then there is no way to access the pointed object through the pointer without indirection.
so something like that:
(nameOfObject)->getSprite()
That does dereference nameOfObject. -> is the indirecting member access operator. It is also ill-formed with a list.
Any ideas?
Avoid wanting impossible things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Answer 2

You usually don't pass single iterator around.
If you want single object, pass single object (whether by reference or pointer)
I write an example code, hope it helps.
fIter is probably what most close to what you currently have
f is demonstrate you can iterate collection without directly use iterator
//
// https://stackoverflow.com/q/63156916/5980430
//
#include <list>
#include <iostream>
class ObjectClass{
public:
int spriteID;
int getSprite(){return spriteID;}
};
//your *collision* function
void collision(ObjectClass& obj){
std::cout << obj.getSprite() << '\n';
}
void f(std::list<ObjectClass>& objs){
for (auto& obj : objs){
collision(obj);
}
}
//even with iterator, you dereference it before pass in other functions
void fIter(std::list<ObjectClass>& objs){
for (auto it = objs.begin(); it != objs.end(); ++it){
collision(*it);
}
}
int main(){
std::list<ObjectClass> objects;
objects.push_back({1});
objects.push_back({2});
objects.push_back({3});
f(objects);
fIter(objects);
}
https://wandbox.org/permlink/SgI5ibjaIXd644DH