Hi all.
I have a User class with two member variables, m_sUsername and m_sPassword. I created this class only a few minutes ago, and before I know it i'm stumped. How do I link a User to the character created by it? Say I just registered and logged in. I've now created a character and want to logout. I logout and log back in again and I want to play as the same character. How would I go about saving the character to that specific User?
Keep a vector with (pointers to) characters in the user class?
Originally Posted by Adak
There are several methods, but if a user ALWAYS has ONE character, then you would store the character (or better, some form of ID or reference) inside the user. In this case, it may still be a good idea to store the user ID inside the character.
If there are multiple characters per user, you definitely HAVE to store the user-ID inside the character.
--
Mats
Compilers can produce warnings - make the compiler programmers happy: Use them!
Please don't PM me for help - and no, I don't do help over instant messengers.
So I would create a reference to a character created by the user and store it in the User class? Sounds good, thanks!
No, you would create an instance of a character class and store a pointer (best bet is a smart pointer, std::tr1::shared_ptr) in the appropriate user class.
Pointers and references aren't the same thing in C++ - you had better remember that! A reference just won't work here!
Just remember that you have to create instances and populate that array everytime a user logs in.
For performance, you might consider storing IDs and creating instances of character classes as they are first needed and then cache them.
Hmmm.. What if I create a reference in my User class to a pointer that points to character that's in my Character class? Or would that not work either?
What would be the point of that?
You would want a vector of your character objects (not pointers).
You could start with that and see if you get a big performance hit. It's good not to do premature optimization.
Code:class User { std::vector<Character> m_Characters; // ... };
I would advise against storing a pointer or reference to any instances of a character inside of a user class. I would store some type of character identifier that might return a ref counted pointer or perhaps a boost shared ptr to the user class from some type of character manager class.
Ohhhhhh that looks and sounds better than my idea
I'm still in the early learning stage and my code is still in the development stage, thanks a lot!
I'm sure you will be hearing from me soon when another problem arises!
