Help with classes & strings members

I have a class and want one of hte private members to be a string, but im having trouble initializeing it in the constructor function.

here is the class

Code:

// Player class declaration
class Player
{
 private:
         char*     playerName;
         short int hitpoints;
         short int strength;
         short int agility;
         short int magic;
         short int gold;
 public:
         Player();                  // constructor
                                    // no destructor
         void reportStats();        // shows stats
         void attack();             // kill monster
         void move();               // move N, E, S, or W (do i need parameters?)
         void rest();               // sleep to regain health
         void setPlayerInfo();      // name, sex
         void showPlayerInfo();         // for debugging only
};

here is the constructor

Code:

Player::Player()    // constructor definition
{
 playerName = "Brian";
 strength = 10;
 agility = 10;
 hitpoints = 10;
 magic = 20;
 gold = 20;
}

is this how i am supposed to declare that data member and initialize it? i get weird errors and funny things when i try to display the data member.

your char * has no memory associated with it. try something like this:

Code:

playerName = new char[20];
strcpy(playerName,"Brian");

and delete it in the destructor.

you could use the string class to make it easier though.

std::string playername;

playername = "Brian";

std::cout << playername.c_str() << std::endl;

where in my code do i playce those two lines?
playerName = new char[20] in the class declaration?
strcpy(playerName,"Brian") in the constructor?

Both lines of code go in the constructor. But you must remember to free the memory that you have allocated using the new operator by using the delete operator.

Therefore in your destructor you would have a line such as:

delete [] playerName;

thankyou .. i think that will help with the constructor

what goes in the class declaration though?

char playerName;

?

What you had originally is correct:

char *playerName;

thankyou foniks

do you know of a website that teaches pointsers thoroughly ? all the websites tutorials i've seen don't make much sense and don't explain when i should/shoudn't/have to use pointers.

Um.. I'm at work at the moment so I can't spend to much time looking ..

But you could try here .

There is also a tutorial on this site regarding pointers over here. Don't worry too much, pointers can be a little difficult at first, but you'll get it eventually. If you have any more questions, post some code.

Oh, and search this forum, a lot of questions regarding pointers have been asked already.