include problems

[spring abyss]

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[arctic ginkgo]

I'm currently making an object pool, and have run into a problem compiling it. class Object includes class Pool. It has a Pool& pool variable in the header so it can later call it when it needs to be put back in the pool. Pool includes Object so it can store a vector of them, as a pool does. This is giving me a lot of compiler errors, and though vague, I'm pretty sure it's because of them both requiring the other in their header like this. Assuming this is the problem, how can I fix this?

[vast patio]

@arctic ginkgo you don't make them inside each other and use forward declarations instead
Or if you insist on making a header only thing, you use forward declaration and delay the include until appropriate

[arctic ginkgo]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that.

[vast patio]

well both solutions I suggested all mentioned forward declarations and now I'm pretty certain you don't know what those are

so arguably, learn how to use them

and what they do

that or post your actual code and I can show you concretely how forward declarations can help resolve "circular dependencies"

[arctic ginkgo]

I know the idea is to effectively promise a method will exist before you get the proper version of it from somewhere, I just don't see how I would apply that here.

[vast patio]

well you're already wrong here, it's not about methods/functions, it's about classes

functions can be declared and defined, likewise for variables

[arctic ginkgo]

I meant classes.

[vast patio]

for classes the standard terminology is forward declaration and definitions

ok well the error you describe only occurs because you have circular includes

which ties into both headers requiring the other in order to refer to the class it defines

except that you don't need the actual class definition

in at least one of the header, you typically only need to know the other class exists

and if this doesn't actually describes/matches your problem, then you're way better off just sharing your code and the compiler error

like, for real, if you aren't sure what is wrong and cannot read the compiler error, just share the compiler error

plenty of people here know how to read compiler errors

[arctic ginkgo]

There's uh... there's a lot.

[vast patio]

that's not the compiler error

and it doesn't matter that there are a lot

what matters is that it has information

and that experienced programmer will be able to look for the information they want inside of that

[vast patio]

to finish this, you're looking at some error list or summary

assuming you're using visual studio, the compiler output/error can be found in the output tab/window/panel

just make sure that panel is displaying the "build output" or some such

[arctic ginkgo]

Well that's good to know then, thanks.

I wanted to try understand the idea of fixing depedancy issues like this better in general, which I now do, and try fix these errors (partly since it's a code test) on my own, which I now can.

I think for this it makes more sense to forward declare the pool. If not I can swap it easy enough after. Thanks.

!solved