hi there just a quick question on pass by reference and value and vectors. i have 3 class's class EntityManager( Singleton ) { vector<Entity_information> entityVec; }; class Entity_information { vector<Animation_info> animationInfo; }; class Animation_Info { vector<SDL_Rect> Frames; }; now i know when dealing with vectors of classes that have vectors. its usually a good idea to send a pointer which has had memory allocated to make sure your dealing with the original address at all times. SO my question is with my code should i change all the stored vector values to new'd pointers? or because that the class thats managing them all is a singleton( EntityManager ) that it doesent matter? The only reason i havent new'd them yet is i dont want to be allocating memory if i dont need too. The reason i ask this is that my Entity_information class will hold the sprite position on screen and that value will have to be used and changed as its passed around instead of a copy..so i suppose i could just always pass those 2 values X,Y around as references...any thoughts?

Thats my point(not intended), at the moment im not using pointers. Should I be? and those where stripped down version's of my class's they actually look as such.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
class CEntityManager : private CSingleton_Warden
{
public:
CEntityManager(void);
~CEntityManager(void);

public:
int Load_Info( CEntity_Information entityInfo );
CEntity_Information Get_Entity( int id ){ return m_Entity_infoVec.at(id); }

private:
std::vector< CEntity_Information > m_Entity_infoVec;

};
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
class CEntity_Information
{
public:
CEntity_Information( Vector2D initialPos );
~CEntity_Information(void);

public:
void Load_Information( CAnimation_Information animation_info );
CAnimation_Information GetAnimation_Info( int id ){ return m_Animation_InfoVec.at(id); }

public:
void SetTextureID( GLuint texture ){ m_TextureID = texture; }
GLuint GetTextureID( ){ return m_TextureID; }

void SetTextureDimensions( SDL_Rect rect ){ m_sdlRect_TextureSize = rect; }
SDL_Rect GetTextureDimensions( ){ return m_sdlRect_TextureSize; }

private:
std::vector< CAnimation_Information > m_Animation_InfoVec;
GLuint m_TextureID;
SDL_Rect m_sdlRect_TextureSize;

Vector2D m_2DVecPosition;
};
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
class CAnimation_Information
{
public:
CAnimation_Information( const int Max );
~CAnimation_Information( );

public:
void Load_Frame( SDL_Rect Rect );
SDL_Rect GetFrame( int id ){ return m_SDLRect_FramesVec.at( id ); }

private:
std::vector< SDL_Rect > m_SDLRect_FramesVec;
int m_maxFrames;
};
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

As long as your Entity_information is not a virtual interface, or a class which privatizes it's copy constructor, or the design states that the ownership of entities is shared and not exclusive to EntityManager, I see no reason for having its elements dynamically allocated within the vector. If you want to modify the contents of the Entity_information vector you can just pass the individual elements as reference to some function, or pass the entire vector as reference.