so ive been trying to get some structure to my game im working on since last one was such a tangled mess, so im starting with game states. ive ripped(not as bad as you think) most the code from here but started converting it to use SFML instead of SDL . Ive never done gamestates before so that is why i didnt want to start from scratch, i figured id find someones source and modify it to work with SFML so i would better understand states and how they are implemented + get it in to my project.

my problem is ive scrapped all the sdl code and replaced it wil similar SFML code just to get things rolling , but im having issues with the pointer to the main renderwindow in the gameEngine class , specifically how would i declare it as public in the header file and initialize it in the cpp file ?

my header looks like this(simplified)


class CGameState;

class CGameEngine
{
public:

void Init(const char* title, int width=800, int height=600, bool fullscreen=false);
void Cleanup();

void ChangeState(CGameState* state);
void PushState(CGameState* state);
void PopState();

void HandleEvents();
void Update();
void Draw();

bool Running() { return m_running; }
void Quit() { m_running = false; }

sf::RenderWindow* window;

private:

};



and my cpp init()

void CGameEngine::Init(const char* title, int width, int height, bool fullscreen)
{
// initialize
window->Create(sf::VideoMode(width, height),title);
window->SetFramerateLimit(60);

m_fullscreen = fullscreen;
m_running = true;

printf("CGameEngine Init\n");
}


the way i tried to create the renderwindow there fails , it should just be sf::RenderWindow window(ect , ect);
but i cant do sf::RenderWindow * window(ect); or sf::RenderWindow window(ect); because those give errors as well . so im wondering how could i initialize this in the cpp while keeping the simple declaration in the .h so i can access it from other classes by doing game->window ? or is there a better way ? as you can tell i haven't used pointers very much .

anyway thanks for reading.

EDIT-----
is there even a need for the renderwindow to be a pointer , i don't mean now specifically but later on ?

i would just do window = new sf::RenderWindow(ect); wouldnt i :\ , and reason for pointer would be so the object doesn't get deleted ? damn its been a while since ive touched c++.

Creating a function to return a reference or the pointer to renderwindow would be pretty much the exact same as what im currently doing game->getWindow().display(); vs game->window->display(); is there any benefit to creating a function to access it , i get that it would be private and not directly accessible from other parts of the code , but does it really matter ? or is there a risk in accessing it the way i am ?

and your right, that was epic.