Mutual Inclusion

[fatlardo]

I realise this seems a stupid question but I have googled this to death with no results so here goes:

I have two files, game.h and player.h. Each contains a reference to the other.

I started by simply putting an include to the other each file. This resulted in an infinite loop when I compiled the program, fair enough really!

So I tried the following, which I found in a c++ forum.

player.h
[tt]
#ifndef PLAYER_H
#define PLAYER_H

class Player() {
...
thisIsAFunction( Game&; );
...
}

#endif
[/tt]

game.h
[tt]
#ifndef GAME_H
#define GAME_H

class Game() {
...
}

#endif
[/tt]

The problem I have now is that the compiler reports an error on the [tt]thisIsAFunction( Game&; );[/tt] line. 'Game' has not been declared.

I should mention that the main.cpp file includes game.h, the game class (an instance of which is created by the main() function) has a member of type Player and the method in the Player class requires a Game object to be passed to it (otherwise I wont be able to draw to the screen!!)

Does anyone know any way around my problem? If I cant do this mutual inclusion thing it could make my code almost unmanageably longer!!!

I am using the gcc complier (i think, not sure how to check!) and using Code::Blocks IDE.

HELP!!!!!!!

 

[Salem]

Try

#ifndef PLAYER_H
#define PLAYER_H

[red]class Game;[/red]
class Player() {
...
thisIsAFunction( Game&; );
...
}

#endif

It's a forward reference, which tells the compiler that Game will be properly declared later. But for now, it only knows that the class exists. So you can't create instances of a Game, but you can point to a Game.



--
If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.