question on NEEDING constants to declare an array of structures

sorry to ask another question, but i need to use a struct, and am declaring it like this...

Code:

struct Transaction	// Declaration of Transaction Structure
{
    int ordernumber;
	char date[10];
	int orderedproductid;
	float priceperproduct;
	int numberordered;
	char productlineid[10];
	int customerid;
};

and.... this is where i use it... first is a counter to find how many
lines are in the file, so thats how i know how large to declare my records.

while( (ch = transactionin.peek()) != EOF)  // this counts how many lines are
{								// in the transaction.h data file
	transactionin.getline(line,100,NEWLINE);
		LINECOUNTER++;
}	

const int MAXRECS = LINECOUNTER;	//used to declare amount of space in the structure
Transaction records[MAXRECS] ;	//declaring the structure with MAXRECS number

thats only part of my code, the counter works fine, but it says my maxrecs needs to be a constant, and i can not get this to work since i need to set maxrecs equal to the linecounter from above.

thanks

Jon

Try using dynamic memory allocation if you want run-time array sizes.

thanks for responding. i am reading up all about dynamic mem. allocation, but am having trouble with it.

how will i use it for my particular case? id imagine for my purposes its a pretty simple thing to do

use the "new" key word for dynamic memory allocation. remember that this will return a pointer to your array, not the array itself.

something like this:

transaction* records = new transaction[MAXRECS];

NOTE: you could use LINECOUNTER directly thus saving some memory.