How to Check a Variable Within a Class?

June 9, 2023

I’m just starting to learn about C++ classes, and I had a question regarding how to check a variable for each object without cycling through them using if-statements.
Here is my code:

    
    #include <iostream>
    using namespace std;
    string ans;


    class Weapon {
    
    public:
        string name;
        int damage;
        bool isCurrentWeapon;
        
        
    public:
    
    Weapon(string n, int d, bool iCW){
        name = n;
        damage = d;
        isCurrentWeapon = iCW;
    }
    };


    int main()
    {
    Weapon sword("Sword",30,true);
    Weapon dagger("Dagger",10,false);
    cout<<"Welcome to the Weapon Shop! Your current weapon is: " XXXXXXX
    return 0;
    }

My question is how would I replace the XXXXXXX with the current weapon? I’d like to somehow check out of ALL of the objects in the class, which one has isCurrentWeapon set to true. And I’d like to do this without using if-statements to individually check each weapon.

I tried to use a static variable, but I decided that that probably wasn’t right, as each instance of Weapon has the variable isCurrentWeapon.

Thanks!

(If there is a better title for this question please edit it – I just couldn’t think of a way to describe it better.)

>Solution :

isCurrentWeapon shouldn’t be a member of the class. You should instead keep a pointer outside the class that points to whichever weapon is the current one.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
string ans;


class Weapon {

public:
    string name;
    int damage;        
    
public:

Weapon(string n, int d, bool iCW){
    name = n;
    damage = d;
}
};

Weapon* currentWeapon;


int main()
{
Weapon sword("Sword",30,true);
Weapon dagger("Dagger",10,false);
currentWeapon = &sword;
cout<<"Welcome to the Weapon Shop! Your current weapon is: " << currentWeapon->name;
return 0;
}