Trouble Declaring a Global Struct Object

Question

Hello,

I'm trying to use a struct in my program, and I need to declare an object of that struct outside any functions. So it looks a little like this:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

struct Object

{

float x;

float y;

float z;

};

Object box;

box.x = 0.0f;

box.y = 0.0f;

box.z = 0.0f;

void MoveObject(Object object)

{

object.x += 20.0;

}

int main()

{

int choice;

cout << "Would you like to move the box?(1/0)";

cin >> choice;

if(choice == 1)

{

MoveObject(box);

}

return 0;

}

What's happening, though, is that I get errors telling be about how I should put a ';' before the '.' in the line "box.x = 0.0f;" when I try to compile the script. I've put the 'Object box' declaration and all related lines inside 'int main()' and it works fine, but I really need a way to be able to declare a global struct object.

Thanks for your help

Answer 1

You can't put code outside of the body of a function or a class. How would it execute? It's simply illegal C++.

On the other hand, it is perfectly ok to use a constructor in your struct for initialization purposes, as in:

struct Object

{

float x;

float y;

float z;      Object ()     {         x = 0.0f; y = 0.0f; z = 0.0f;     }

};

Answer 2

To add to what Brian said, you should pass your object by reference:

void MoveObject(Object& object)
{
     object.x += 20.0;
}

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David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP