Is there a way to get (*pointer)[ index ] functionality from something more terse?

Question

I have a class to represent a one dimensional spectrum. The underlying datatype is a simple array of floats. To manipulate elements of the spectrum I overloaded the subscript operators as follows:

class OneDSpectrum
{
public:
    ...
    float& operator[](int index);
    const float& operator[](int index) const;
    ...
private:
    int numChannels;
    float* histogram;
    ...
}

Unfortunately, almost all uses of this class are as pointers so I have the somewhat annoying (*pointerToSpectrum)[ index ] notation to deal with now.

I had two initial ideas:

My first idea was to overload the subscript operator for OneDSpectrum*, but that just looks like a basket full of potential issues and trouble.

My second idea was to make some sort of custom smart pointer for OneDSpectrums.

So my question is this: Is it reasonable to do SmartPointerToSpectrum[ index ] to get (*pointerToSpectrum)[ index ] functionality? Or should I just deal with using a lot of (*pointerToSpectrum)[ index ]?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, almost all uses of this class are as pointers

Have you considered using references instead?

void foo(OneDSpectrum* a, OneDSpectrum& b)
{
    (*a)[0] = 42;
    b[0] = 97;
}

int main()
{
    OneDSpectrum x;
    OneDSpectrum y;
    foo(&x, y);
}