[C++] Would using pointers make sense here?

[NeatSquidYT]

https://github.com/MJGHD/Stacks.

I want to make a flash card program, and have my questions as one array and answers as another. Would using pointers to store these be a good idea?

[LeonKennedy6]

Your Github link is broken

Never Mind

[mikat]

https://github.com/MJGHD/Stacks.

I want to make a flash card program, and have my questions as one array and answers as another. Would using pointers to store these be a good idea?

+1 follower on github haha

[Nineshadow]

Uh...arrays are basically pointers with allocated memory.

 

I don't quite get the question. What else are you trying to use pointers for? Make a linked list/graph? That would be good , but you are just fine with std::vector.

 

Anyway, you should probably be making a structure/class for the flashcards :

struct flashcard{    char *question;    char *answer;    flashcard(char *_question , char *_answer) : answer(_answer) , question(_question){}};

Then make an array of those.

[DevBlox]

Don't use pointers unless you need to, and I think you can mostly (they will come up in a few places, I'm sure) get away without using them in your program. That will reduce some headaches, you don't have anything to win with using them in your case. Unless you want to learn them this way, then please do use them!

 

Generaly you use them for bigger structures or buffers, because it's easier to reference where they are put rather than move the entireity of the thing, they may take up lots of space and copying them is not a good idea for performance. Also they are often used when you have no direct control over that memory, like some libraries don't allow you to handle their structures or maybe even some other program is handling them (that's one way IPC can be done, that's the shared memory way). They make no sense for small variables, unless they have to be referenced inside the function (C++ has a way with this without using pointer semantics, thats the '&' that goes after the type in a function declaration, it's just a pointer underneath). Well there's more to it than that, but for most cases that's it, let's narrowly avoid a wall of text here. Basically when you say "I want that piece of memory" you use a pointer, also think if that piece of memory needs to be referenced at all.

[prolemur]

Pointers would be used if say each card was drawn to the screen and the backsides were all the same.

 

Instead of each card having their own image taking up extra memory each card could just have a pointer that points to a static image.

This kind of optimization is easy and essential if you try to scale your game by having like 10,000 cards on screen at once.

 

Edit: first post with christmas profile pic of 2015