Thread: Vectors & objects/pointers

Are you referring to cleaning up items allocated with new automatically? If so, you need smart pointers.

Originally Posted by kotoko

Code:

Item* makeItem(){
  std::vector<Item> bag;
  bag.push_back(*(new Item()));
  bag.back().name = "ball";
  return &(bag.back());
}

Don't do it like that. If you want to hold onto the address of the item inserted then you're most likely going to need to use a list, not a vector, and certainly not one that is a local variable. You don't use the new keyword to push_back an item. Assuming an appropriate constructor that takes a string, here you'd just do:

Code:

std::list<Item> bag;

Item* makeItem() {
    bag.push_back(Item("ball"));
    return &bag.back();
}

But sreiously, I strongly suspect that you're only creating problems for yourself by taking pointers to the items you insert.
One needs to look at the bigger picture. How does this fit into the rest of the program? What will it be used for?