Hello

I was trying to make some simple demo to learn basics of the physics. I want the cannon to shoot single bullet whenever I press left mouse button.

I have the bullet class, that stores variables such as veolocities, position etc. Here is my problem:

    //bullet myBullet(90, 530, 20, -20, 1);
    while(!quit)
    {
        fps.start();
        while(SDL_PollEvent(&event))
        {
            if(event.type==SDL_QUIT) quit=true;
            if(event.type==SDL_MOUSEBUTTONDOWN)
            {
                // creating the object
                if(event.button.button==SDL_BUTTON_LEFT) bullet myBullet(90, 530, 20, -20, 1);
            }
        }
        myBullet.update(); //calculating position etc
        
        // RENDERING
        SDL_FillRect(screen, NULL, SDL_MapRGB(screen->format, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF));
        myBullet.show();
        my_AttachImage(10, 520, cannon, screen);
        SDL_Flip(screen);
        if(fps.getTicks()<1000/FPS) SDL_Delay(1000/FPS-fps.getTicks());
    }

I keep getting error on the myBullet.update() line. It says: |error: 'myBullet' was not declared in this scope|. Everything works when I create the object before the main loop ( the commented line that you can see ). But I need the bullet to be created when i press LMB. How can I have it working?

I should have thought about the dynamic memory.. everything works fine now. As for the vector: I wanted to get this to work first, before rendering multiple bullets at a time. You know, small steps :) Thanks for help

If you use the raw pointer solution SiCrane posted, don't forget to delete the pointer in the new bullet maker and after the end of the program so you won't leak memory!

E.g.

...
Bullet * myBullet = 0; //nullptr instead of 0 if using C++11
while (!quit)
{
  if (shootNew)
  {
    delete myBullet; //does nothing if myBullet is null
    myBullet = new Bullet();
  }
  if (myBullet != 0)
    myBullet.doSomething();
}
delete myBullet;
...

If you don't, the old bullets are still in memory, so after pressing the fire button 2000 times, there are 2000 bullets in memory. Yuck.

As an additional note,

When you do go down the container root, so you can have multiple bullets, set a 'roof' of the number of maximum bullets you can have on-screen. This stops any new bullets being created before you are allowed to fire a new one. Without this you could have ALOT of them on screen at one time which, when rendered, will slow down you program considerably.

You can use this max value as part of the test to check whether a 'newShoot' is allowed, and implement other tests. For example, if the max value has been reached, check if a bullet goes off-screen, then you can kill it, free its pointer up, and set newShoot to true so that a you can create a new one.

I hope that is clear,

Stitchs.