latex math symbol for pointer in object oriented context

Question

I need to use the pointer symbol (like P->a) in math latex. If I use normal characters like hyphen and > it doesn't look good. I guess there should be a specific symbol for it in latex, but I didn't find it anywhere.

The hyphen should be connected to the edge of ">", like when you type --> in microsoft office and it changes it automatically.

Any idea?

Answer 1

You can create your own by joining two - and > in math mode:

\documentclass{article}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\my@arrow}[1]{\ooalign{$#1-\mkern-5mu-$\cr\hidewidth$#1>$}}
\newcommand{\myarrow}{\mathrel{\mathpalette\my@arrow\relax}}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
$A \rightarrow B$ \par
$A \longrightarrow B$ \par
$A -> B$ \par
$A \myarrow B_{A \myarrow B_{A \myarrow B}}$
\end{document}

The use of \mathpalette is explained in The mysteries of \mathpalette. It's used as a helper function for \mathchoice to scale math content to the required style (size).