overloading operator->

[chipperMDW]

Say I have:

template< class T >
class SmartPtr
{
  public:
    ...
    T *operator->() { return ptr; }

  private:
    T *ptr;
};

This works (and is apparently the/a correct way of doing it), but I don't understand the logic behind having the operator return a pointer.

Given:

SmartPtr< FooStruct > p = &someFooStruct;

that means:

p->fooStructMember;

roughly translates to:

( &someFooStruct ) fooStructMember;

which looks like it's missing a -> . Does another operator-> get called behind the scenes for the return value of operator-> ? If not, what exactly is going on here?