Passing an array of pointers to a Class Object - c++

Question

Hoping someone can help a beginner out here. I searched but some of the solutions were out of scope my knowledge. I'm trying to create a function which will take in a an array of pointers to a class object and output a getName() function for each object. But I keep getting a "no instance of overloaded function". I can't figure out what the problem is. Please take a look at following code.
#include <iostream>
#include "Student.hpp"
#include <string>
using namespace std;
void getName(Student *studentArray[], int); //prototype
int main()
{
//Creates class objects with Constructors Name and Score
//Class object has a function getName() to return name
Student stud1("John", 100);
Student stud2("Mary", 90);
Student stud3 ("Jack", 85);
//Create an array of student objects
Student myArray[3]= {stud1, stud2, stud3};
//ERROR HERE NO INSTANCE OF OVERLOADED FUNCTON
getName(myArray, 3)
return 0;
}
void getName(Student *studentsArray[], int arraySize)
{
for(int index=0; index < arraySize; index++)
{
cout << studentsArray[index]->getName() << endl;
}
}

Answer 1

Student *studentsArray[] is an array of pointers to students:
[-> "John", -> "Mary", -> "Jack"]
While Student *studentsArray is a pointer to a student (e.g. the first of an array):
-> [ "John", "Mary", "Jack" ]
using the [] operator you can jump to the offset relative to a pointer
studentsArray[0] == (*studentsArray)
studentsArray[1] == *(studentsArray+1)
studentsArray[2] == *(studentsArray+2)
and the -> operator is syntactic sugar for (*var).
The problem is that you created an array of students instead of an array of pointers of students:
Student myArray[3] = {stud1, stud2, stud3};
should actually be
Student* myArray[3] = { &stud1, &stud2, &stud3 };
Here is a full working example:
#include <iostream>
#include "Student.hpp"
#include <string>
using namespace std;
void getName(Student *studentsArray[], int); //prototype
int main()
{
//Creates class objects with Constructors Name and Score
//Class object has a function getName() to return name
Student stud1("John", 100);
Student stud2("Mary", 90);
Student stud3("Jack", 85);
//Create an array of student objects
Student* myArray[3] = { &stud1, &stud2, &stud3 };
getName(myArray, 3);
return 0;
}
void getName(Student *studentsArray[], int arraySize)
{
for (int index = 0; index < arraySize; index++)
{
cout << studentsArray[index]->getName() << endl;
}
}

Answer 2

The most important thing is that your pointer doesn't actually point any existing variable or its address. In this case, pointer will instead point a randomly chosen memory cell address, so it's really dangerous because you will never know what it will cause, including data lose, memory leak and so on.

Answer 3

With std::vector, it would be something like:
#include "Student.hpp"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
void displayNames(const std::vector<Student>& students);
int main()
{
Student stud1("John", 100);
Student stud2("Mary", 90);
Student stud3("Jack", 85);
std::vector<Student> students = {stud1, stud2, stud3};
displayNames(students);
return 0;
}
void displayNames(const std::vector<Student>& students)
{
for (const auto& student : students)
{
std::cout << student.getName() << std::endl;
}
}