From: an118 AT chebucto DOT ns DOT ca (Graham Howard Wile)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: HELP - need help resolving conundrum with classes
Date: 6 Mar 1997 01:23:17 GMT
Organization: Chebucto Community Net
Lines: 70
Message-ID: <5fl6a5$4ic@News.Dal.Ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: chebucto.ns.ca
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp


	How can I declare two different classes, where each class has a member 
variable of the other class type. My problem is how to get the compiler to 
recognize a variable type before it has been created.

	EXAMPLE:



class the_cat
	{
	private:

		int its_age, its_weight;
		char *fur_color;
		the_owner its_owners[3]; //each cat has 3 owners, or people who 
					 //look after it

					 //I know this is illegal, because the 
					 //class "the_owner" hasn't been
					 //declared yet

	
	public:

		//whatever member functions the cat might have
	};



class the_owner
	{
	private:

		the_cat cats_owned[5]   //each owner owns 5 cats
		car *owner_occupation   //what owner does for a living

	
	public:

		//whatever member functions the owner might have
	};



	Naturally, this won't work. The class "the_cat" can't declare a 
variable of type "the_owner" if the class "the_owner" hasn't been created yet.

	BUT - I can't reverse the class declarations and have "the_owner" 
declared first, or else "the_owner" would not be able to declare any variables 
of type "the_cat"

	Alas, the order of the class declarations shown above will allow me to 
have an owner that has 5 cats, but none of the cats can have an owner. In the 
other order, I can produce a cat with 3 owners, but none of the owners will be 
able to have any cats!

	Does anyone know how I can declare these two classes so that an owner 
can have cats AND the cats have owners too ? I don't need a real long answer 
that spells the whole thing out for me. I just need to know what 
keywords/concepts I can look up that would likely address this conundrum.
	

							Thanks, 
								Graham



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