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Weird array problems

Splat · 1999-10-31T10:44:00

Ok, this has been bugging me for a while and I'm pretty sure it's Visual C++ screwing up but here it goes:I have a class defined as follows: class ... {public: ....private: struct ... myStructs[100];} Ok, now, I initialize the variables in another function. void ...::Initialize() { int i; for (i = 0; i <= 100; i++) { myStructs[i].member1 = 0; myStructs[i].member2 = 0; }} Ok, here's where it really screws up: When the program quits, it tells me "HEAP[GameTest.exe]: Heap block at 008C6F20 modified at 008C7558 past requested size of 630" Now, I've found 2 ways to fix this: One is to increase the array size by 1, and NEVER touch that last entry. The second is to not touch the "member2" member of the structure. Either one will avoid the heap overflow. I have encountered variations of this problem before in Visual C++. Even without structures, with simple int arrays. WTF is going on?!?!?!?! Is Visual C++ not allocating enough space for scoped arrays?? I can avoid it for now with the additional element at the end of the array, but I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to know why this is happening to me. - Splat [This message has been edited by Splat (edited October 26, 1999).]

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by Splat October 31, 1999 10:44 AM

13 comments, last by Splat 24 years, 8 months ago

Anonymous

October 26, 1999 11:57 PM

well, you just ran into the #1 classic C error that alot of people make. Basically, you're indexing past the end of your array. Consider this :

you told VC++ to make 100 instances of your structure. Ok, it did that.

Now look at your for loop. You count from 0 to 100, inclusive. Well, if you count from 1 to 100, you get, 100. But counting from **0**, you get 101. (try counting to 10 on your fingers starting at 1 and 0 to verify this.) So you're indexing 1 past the end of your allocated space.

To fix this, change your loop to :

for (i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
myStructs.member1 = 0; myStructs.member2 = 0; }basically, just remember : when starting at 0 you always want to have the stop condition be 1 less than the number of members you have allocated.– Remnant

foofightr

130

October 27, 1999 05:27 PM

*chuckle*

Joshua Schpok

122

October 27, 1999 05:50 PM

BWAHAHAH!

Splat

122

Author

October 27, 1999 06:05 PM

My God! Don't I feel foolish. I never was able to replicate this problem consistantly, so I always though it was the compiler. I guess another variable was allocated right at the end of my array so sometimes that last entry would go into the other variable. It's amazing: I ALWAYS though that int array[10] meant the upper bound was 10 and the lower bound was 0! All I can say is - Silly me!

I've never had anything in the form of instruction on ANY programming language, and I originally (8 years ago) became proficient in Visual Basic, where the number of entries was ALSO the upper bound!

Oh yeah, you can stop chuckling now hehe

- Splat

[This message has been edited by Splat (edited October 27, 1999).]

Anonymous

October 27, 1999 07:51 PM

hehe. S'ok, almost everyone has a similar blunder to tell about. Just be careful next time before you claim that the compiler is messing up.

-- Remnant

Niels

122

October 28, 1999 05:31 AM

If you've been polluted by VB, I can easily understand your confusion

... VB has the most perculiar implementation of arrays that I've ever seen.

/Niels

/NJ

Niels

122

October 28, 1999 05:51 AM

Oh, about blunders, dig this:

In my game, I use an event system to tie the game code to the various (sound/graphics/network) engines. This works by having a base C++ eventlistener class with a virtual method that is implemented in the various subclasses that needs to know about the event (similar to the way it works in Java).

Very neat.

However, all of a sudden I started getting these very strange null pointer exceptions in my event handling - apparently the compiler failed to overload the virtual method in the sub classes. Or not.

The problem as it turned out, was a small macro I had created to avoid uninitialized data in my classes:

#define init(class) { ZeroMemory(this,sizeof(class)); }

Guess what, virtul methods in C++ are really invisible member variables, clearing the class also clears the virtual functions.. Doh!

/Niels

/NJ

Splat

122

Author

October 28, 1999 06:16 PM

That's really interesting! I guess C++ stores the virtual function table IN the class data. There might be interesting uses of that, like manually overloading a function in runtime.

Oh yeah. Niels: Yeah, I haven't programmed in VB for some time now - It's nice for real quick Windows application development, but C++ can be and most of the time is SO much better than everything I've ever programmed in

- Splat

[This message has been edited by Splat (edited October 28, 1999).]

Niels

122

October 29, 1999 10:09 AM

Before you get too addicted to C++, check out Java - it's a much much better language. It's not quite as fast, but it IS getting there (and it IS WAY BEYOND VB)...

(I have a feeling it would be ultimate for writing game code, I.e. do the engine in C++/asm whatever, put it in a DLL, and then use Java to glue it all together)...

/Niels

/NJ

Splat

122

Author

October 29, 1999 04:05 PM

I had a relatively bad experience with Java. I used it for a while, but it was slow (before JIT compilers) so I stopped. Now, I think that when I'm done my game engine in might just write games in Java. One question, off topic: Can you compile a Java application into platform-specific executables? Kinda like funneling off the JIT compiler output into an EXE file? That would be great, and remove my last qualm about programming a real application in Java.

- Splat

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Weird array problems

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