Re: Newb Question on Properties of Objects

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 2 Dec 2008 09:20:32 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<f9145db5-b1af-464a-8d04-59c383362ae0@j35g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
On Dec 2, 1:46 pm, Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nos...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

On 2 Dec, 11:51, databi...@gmail.com wrote:


    [...]

int main ()

{
  Star all_stars(255); //a list holding 256 star objects


His type Star didn't have a constructor taking an int, and it
only represented a single star. What he needs here is:

    std::vector< Star > all_stars( 256 ) ;

(Or don't define the dimensions, and just push_back the Star as
you input them.)

  Star current; //a single star object to use in program


consider making current a pointer


Why? For the moment, Star seems to have value semantics, which
means that you probably don't want a pointer to it.

  int hour = 18;

  for (int i = 0; i<=255;i++)
  {
      current = all_stars(i);
      Display_star(current.bearing(hour), current.ascension(hour)); //
function to render stars
  }

return 0;

}

So, my question is, will my main() work? Particularly, is it
valid to assign all_stars(i) to "current"?


yes


No, since the definition of itself wasn't legal. If he uses a
vector, then
    current = all_stars[ i ] ;
is certainly legal. But I'd definitly write the loop:

    for ( size_t i = 0 ; i < all_stars.size() ; ++ i ) {
        // ...
    }

(Or use an iterator.)

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