Hello, I am currently writing a game engine, and I am thinking of switching to static variables for my input engine. At first, I would pass the input engine over to objects that need it, for example the Player. Every time I create a player, i would pass the input engine over to it, like this:

player1->inputEngine = inputEngine;

However, I found this to be very tedious, and have decided to instead make all the variables in the Input engine class static, so that i wont have to copy the reference over. Would you consider that to be a good idea? I have a feeling that this might be the same as using global variables, which I know is evil, but what other alternative do I have?

1 line of code is tedious? What if you have 2 players on one machine using different input methods? What if you want ghost players e.g. in a racing game which playback previous stored input?

1 line of code is tedious? What if you have 2 players on one machine using different input methods? What if you want ghost players e.g. in a racing game which playback previous stored input?

I meant in the long run, what if i have a graphics engine, sound engine, and a hundred objects that all use different engines

I don't really know what you mean by engine in this context. Maybe the engine should have a container of all the objects it does stuff with instead?

I don't really know what you mean by engine in this context. Maybe the engine should have a container of all the objects it does stuff with instead?

I want the game loop to first check the input, then loop through all the game objects and call their update functions. the update functions will use the input data to determine what to do.

I'l give example:

class InputEngine

{

public:

InputEngine();

static bool leftPressed;

};

Yes it is! You're Hitler to me now.

I want the game loop to first check the input, then loop through all the game objects and call their update functions. the update functions will use the input data to determine what to do.
I'l give example:

class InputEngine
{
public:
InputEngine();
static bool leftPressed;
};

I want the game loop to first check the input, then loop through all the game objects and call their update functions. the update functions will use the input data to determine what to do.
I'l give example:

class InputEngine
{
public:
InputEngine();
static bool leftPressed;
};

There's nothing evil about this, but there's no need to make that static. Static means that all instances will of InputEngine will all use the same variable. In another post you said each player gets a reference to the input engine so this doesn't make sense and isn't needed.

no, I meant that if I don't pass it by reference I use static variables.

I want the game loop to first check the input, then loop through all the game objects and call their update functions. the update functions will use the input data to determine what to do.
I'l give example:
class InputEngine
{
public:
InputEngine();
static bool leftPressed;
};

There's nothing evil about this, but there's no need to make that static. Static means that all instances will of InputEngine will all use the same variable. In another post you said each player gets a reference to the input engine so this doesn't make sense and isn't needed.

no, I meant that if I don't pass it by reference I use static variables.