C++ Array Of Pointers

Question

In C++ if I want an array of pointers so that I may have them point to different objects at a latter stage what does the syntax look like.

EDIT

I need to clarify what I am trying to do I guess. I have a class foo that has and add method. In the add method I take a reference to class bar. I want to save that reference into a pointer array of bar. The array of pointer bar will need to be expanded all the time this I have no problems with. It is creating and array on the heap of pointers so that I may assign bar objects to them later. What I have tried seems to fail as class bar does not have a default constructor which the compiler is complaining about. This lead me to think that I was creating and array of actual objects which I did not want to do.

Please no stl and no I do not want to hear about how you think this is crazy etc that is your opinion.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

For example, if you want an array of int pointers it will be int* a[10]. It means that variable a is a collection of 10 int* s.

EDIT

I guess this is what you want to do:

class Bar
{
};

class Foo
{
public:

    //Takes number of bar elements in the pointer array
    Foo(int size_in);

    ~Foo();
    void add(Bar& bar);
private:

    //Pointer to bar array
    Bar** m_pBarArr;

    //Current fee bar index
    int m_index;
};

Foo::Foo(int size_in) : m_index(0)
{
    //Allocate memory for the array of bar pointers
    m_pBarArr = new Bar*[size_in];
}

Foo::~Foo()
{
    //Notice delete[] and not delete
    delete[] m_pBarArr;
    m_pBarArr = NULL;
}

void Foo::add(Bar &bar)
{
    //Store the pointer into the array. 
    //This is dangerous, you are assuming that bar object
    //is valid even when you try to use it
    m_pBarArr[m_index++] = &bar;
}

Answer 2

What you want is:

Foo *array[10]; // array of 10 Foo pointers

Not to be confused with:

Foo (*array)[10]; // pointer to array of 10 Foos

In either case, nothing will be automatically initialized because these represent pointers to Foos that have yet to be assigned to something (e.g. with new).

I finally "got" pointer/array declaration syntax in C when I realized that it describes how you access the base type. Foo *array[5][10]; means that *array[0..4][0..9] (subscript on an array of 5 items, then subscript on an array of 10 items, then dereference as a pointer) will access a Foo object (note that [] has higher precedence than *).

This seems backwards because one might think that int array[5][10]; (a.k.a. int (array[5])[10]);) would be an array of 10 int array[5]. Imagine, if you will, that this is the case. Imagine that int array[5][10] is an array of 10 items of the type int array[5]. If this were so, then you would access the array by saying array[0..9][0..4]. Doesn't that look backwards too? Because a C array declaration is a pattern indicating how to get to the base type (rather than a composition of array expressions like one might expect), array declarations and code using arrays don't have to be flipflopped.

Answer 3

I would do it something along these lines:

class Foo{
...
};

int main(){
  Foo* arrayOfFoo[100]; //[1]

  arrayOfFoo[0] = new Foo; //[2]
}

[1] This makes an array of 100 pointers to Foo-objects. But no Foo-objects are created actually created.

[2] This is one possible way to instantiate an object, and at the same time save a pointer to this object in the first position of your array.

Answer 4

boost:ptr_array

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_43_0/libs/ptr_container/doc/ptr_array.html

Answer 5

If you don't use the STL, then the code looks a lot bit like C.

#include <cstdlib>
#include <new>

template< class T >
void append_to_array( T *&arr, size_t &n, T const &obj ) {
    T *tmp = static_cast<T*>( std::realloc( arr, sizeof(T) * (n+1) ) );
    if ( tmp == NULL ) throw std::bad_alloc( __FUNCTION__ );
       // assign things now that there is no exception
    arr = tmp;
    new( &arr[ n ] ) T( obj ); // placement new
    ++ n;
}

T can be any POD type, including pointers.

Note that arr must be allocated by malloc, not new[].