Implementation problems:
1) Functions like displayElement, which do not modify members, should be const
2) Complex types, such as std::string should be passed by const-reference, instead of passed by value.
3) Array should definitely be a template class, with Node as the template parameter.
4) The check of m_headPtr against NULL is useless -- the basic new operator never returns NULL (it throws a std::bad_alloc on failure).
5) You're not following the rule of three, which means your class is dangerous and will cause crashes if an instance is ever copied/assigned.

Design problems:
This design constantly violates the law of demeter. You've tied together:
A ) a particular application-specific data structure (Node)
B ) functionality for deserialising 'Nodes' from a file stream (which also requires the user to guess how many items are in the file...)
C ) functionality for displaying 'Nodes' to a hard-coded output stream (this logic is even duplicated in displayArray/displayElement)
D ) a linear search function (std::find)
E ) array resource management (std::vector)

That's 5 different areas of functionality, all tightly coupled together. There is no need for any of those areas to be directly connected to each other like that.

Could you plz explain how/what i can do to make my member functions loosely coupled? Also how can i stop from duplicating logic like you say?

I'll reply to your PM here.


First, to decouple the array class, we can strip the it back so it only deals with array memory management - nothing else.template<class T> class Array

{
private:
typedef T Node;
Node* m_headPtr;
size_t m_ArraySize;
public:
Array() : m_ArraySize(), m_headPtr() {}
Array( size_t size ) : m_ArraySize( size ), m_headPtr( new Node[size] ) {}
Array( const Array& obj ) : m_ArraySize(), m_headPtr() { *this = obj; }
~Array() { delete [] m_headPtr; }
Array& operator=( const Array& obj );
void resize( size_t );
size_t size() const { return m_ArraySize; }
Node& operator[]( size_t i ) { return m_headPtr; }
const Node& operator[]( size_t i ) const { return m_headPtr; }
};

template<class T> Array<T>& Array<T>::operator=( const Array<T>& obj )
{
if( this != &obj )//skip over this code if performing self assignment (e.g. "a = a;")
{
delete [] m_headPtr;
m_ArraySize = obj.m_ArraySize;
m_headPtr = new Node[obj.m_ArraySize];
for( int i = 0; i < m_ArraySize; i++ )
m_headPtr = obj.m_headPtr;
}
return *this;
}

template<class T> void Array<T>::resize( size_t size )
{
m_ArraySize = size;
Node* pNew = new Node[size];
for( int i = 0; i < m_ArraySize; i++ )
pNew = m_headPtr;
delete [] m_headPtr;
m_headPtr = pNew;
}

Some of the logic that was in [font="Courier New"]populate[/font]/[font="Courier New"]display[/font] can be moved into overloaded operators for your node structure:
struct Node {
int m_SSid;
int m_age;
int m_commulativeContribution;
int m_yearStarted;
};
std::istream& operator>>( std::fstream& in, Node& out )
{
in >> out.m_SSid;
in >> out.m_age;
in >> out.m_commulativeContribution;
in >> out.m_yearStarted;
return in;
}
std::ostream& operator<<( std::ostream& out, const Node& in )
{
out << in.m_SSid << std::endl;
out << in.m_age << std::endl;
out << in.m_commulativeContribution << std::endl;
out << in.m_yearStarted << std::endl;
return out;
}...Which makes the [font="Courier New"]populate[/font]/[font="Courier New"]display[/font] functions a bit more reusable (they work for any kind of array/node now). They also don't have to be member functions, because they don't need to access any [font="Courier New"]private[/font] variables.//print out an array's values
template<class Array>void displayArray( const Array& in )
{
for( size_t i = 0; i != in.size(); ++i )
std::cout << in;
}

//read array values from a file
template<class Array> void populateArray( Array& out, std::fstream& in, size_t size )
{
in.clear();
in.seekp( 0L, std::ios::beg ); // (offset, base(where to start))
out.resize( size );
for( int i = 0; i < size; i++ )
in >> out;
}

//helper overload takes a file-name instead of a file
template<class Array> void populateArray( Array& out, const std::string& fileName, size_t size )
{
std::fstream dataFile;
dataFile.open( fileName.c_str(), std::ios::in );
if( dataFile.fail() )
throw "Unable To Open The Specified File";
populateArray( out, dataFile, size );
dataFile.close();
}
The search function used to be hard-coded to only search for the "m_SSid" field. If you turn it into a template then you can reuse this logic for many different kinds of searchestemplate<class Array, class T> int sequentialSearch( const Array& data, const T& find )
{
for( int i = 0; i < data.size(); i++ )
if( data == find )
return i;
return -1;
}//pass a 'FindSsid' object to sequentialSearch in order to search nodes based on m_SSid
struct FindSsid {
int ssid;
FindSsid(int i) : ssid(i) {}
};
bool operator==( const Node& lhs, const FindSsid& rhs ) {
return lhs.m_SSid == rhs.ssid;
}

//putting it all together
int main( int argc, char** argv )
{
try {
Array<Record> array1;
populateArray( array1, "datafile.txt", 2 );
displayArray( array1 );
int index = sequentialSearch( array1, FindSsid(645) );
if( index == -1 )
std::cout << "The SSid that was searched for was not found in the Array" << std::endl;
else
std::cout << "The SSid was found at index " << index << std::endl;
}
catch( const char *string ) {
add_log( string );
}
catch( const std::bad_alloc& exception ) {
add_log( "Unable to Allocate the Specified memory" );
}
catch( ... ) {
add_log( "Unknown error" );
}
holdScreen();
return 0;}

thanks a bunch mate! am currently at work, but when i get home i shall study this and understand how it's differs from my code! and make according changes!

typedef T Node; <--- why instantiate a Node object on creation of an array? is this a mistake?

That doesn't instantiate anything. A typedef creates a type alias so that Node can be used in place of T.

<--- why instantiate a Node object on creation of an array? is this a mistake?

Sorry, that was unnecessarily confusing.

I did that because the Array class was already written to use 'Node' everywhere, but I wanted it to use 'T' instead. That typedef says that wherever you see the word Node used (inside the array class and it's functions ONLY), then it's actually a 'T' (NOT the [color="#1C2837"][color="#660066"]Node from your first post).

e.g. given a [font="'Courier New"]Array<int>[/font], then [font="'Courier New"]Array<int>::Node[/font] would be a private typedef for '[font="'Courier New"]int[/font]'.template<class T> class Array
{
private:
typedef T Node; //Inside the scope of "Array", pretend that the word "Node" is actually "T".
....
....
template<class T> void Array<T>::resize( size_t size )
{//We're inside the scope of "Array::" here
...
//this doesn't actually make one of your 'Node' structs, this makes a 'T' (whatever that is)
Node* pNew = new Node[size]; //i.e. T* pNew = new T[size];
...
I could've done a find&replace with 'Node' and 'T' instead :/