Access a value from a struct via a pointer? (C++)

Question

Here is my struct:

struct Checker
{
  short row;
  short col;
  unsigned short number;
  short color;
};

Now, I have to also make another struct to represent a checkers board:

struct Board
{
  Checker checkers[2][13]; // Zeroth entry of 13 is not used.
  Checker *grid[8][8]; // each entry holds Null or an address
                       // of an element in the checkers array
};

If it matters, checkers[0-1] represents what side, [1-12] are unique numbers for each piece.

Anyways, I have a an 8x8 grid, that either points to NULL, or a checker piece. What i want to do is to be able to access that checker not by its unique ID (checkers[0][5] for instance), but instead by its position on the grid.

How can I access the data members in this fashion? I'l try to summarize:

Declared a Board gameBoard. Set up the grid so that I have a checkers piece at [0][0]. This would be checkers[0][1]. So instead of doing cout <<checkers[0][1].number, I'd like to be able to print the checker's number without knowing its ID, and instead knowing that that specific checker is at [0][0]

Thanks.

Answer 1

cout << grid[0][0]->number;

If the grid is a 2-dimensional array of pointers to Checker structs, then grid[0][0] is a pointer to the Checker at that location (0, 0). The -> syntax dereferences the pointer and then accesses the number field.

If I am misunderstanding your question or my response fails, please let me know and I'll happily delete. It's late. :)