Thread: Question about destructors

I'm working on an inventory system for a game. Right now I have:

Code:

Struct Item()
{
string name;
int value, quantity, type;
int creator(int);
};


int Item::creator(a)
{
  if (a == 1)
  {
  Item potion;
  potion.name = "Potion";
  potion.value = 5;
  potion.type = 1;
  potion.quantity++;
  }
}

So when the user buys, crafts, or finds a potion in the game, I will tell Item::Creator to make an object named potion, and assign its values. If the user where to use or sell all of their potions, should I have some code that will delete the potion object and its members to free up memory? Is that would I could use a destructor for? If so, how hard would it be to add a destructor in the above example?

Originally Posted by prog-bman

You are more talking about dynamic memory allocation / deallocation then destruction. Basically you would use a vector or list to store the items and when the particular item was used or sold the item would be removed from the container, essentially freeing up the memory used by that item. Now if that item had any dynamic properties and those needed to be deallocated that is where your destructor would come into play.

In my above example. Is there a way to delete the object Potion if the user no longer has any? That would free up the memory used to store information about an object that I don't even need. Or am I confused? heh.

Originally Posted by Xanderbeard

In my above example. Is there a way to delete the object Potion if the user no longer has any? That would free up the memory used to store information about an object that I don't even need. Or am I confused? heh.

You are way too late with that. The item called potion is long gone -- it vanished as soon as you exited the item::creator function. Presumably you meant to work on the Item object you called it with, instead of creating a brand new item and throwing it away. So something like

Code:

int Item::creator(a)
{
  if (a == 1)
  {
  name = "Potion";
  value = 5;
  type = 1;
  quantity++;
  }
}

will change the values of the item object. But this is not a constructor; the object must already exist.

Thanks mates, I see where I was confused now. That code I posted was just something I typed for the post-- I wasn't trying to run that.