Setting up global plugin structs

Hi folks,

I've had a persistent issue with setting up some plugins with global structs. I'm sure I've read about this previously, maybe something to do with symbols not being loaded before PluginStart() is called? I forget the details...

Anyhow, is there a 'correct' way to setup a global struct for my plugin, that has BaseContainers, Strings etc in it? Take this for example, if I do this:

// global struct
struct MyStruct
{
    BaseContainer bc;
}mystruct;

the plugin fails to start and I get a crash file with nothing in it. If I do this:

// global struct
struct MyStruct
{
    std::vector< BaseContainer > bc;
}mystruct;

then the plugin loads. Obviously I have to take care of the array, but that aside. Is there a way of having a global struct load with Cinema objects, without cheating it like this? Or - is there a better cheat...

WP.

hi,

after you struct declaration, you are adding mystruct witch will create a variable of the type of your structure.
It try to allocate a BaseContainer that is unknown.

If you add that to a Vector, as the vector is empty, it doesn't try to allocate a BaseContainer.

I'm not sure why you need a global structure, but I would create a pointer and in pluginstart and pluginend take care of assign memory and free it.

// global struct
struct MyStruct
{
    BaseContainer bc;
}
MyStruct *g_mystruct = nullptr;

You can have a look at Entity Creation in our documentation.

Cheers,
Manuel

Hi Manuel,

what you say rings a bell. I was sure it was because the vector hadn't allocated anything yet.

Global possibly wasn't the best way admittedly, it just started like that for convenience. But it ended up being a bit complex, there's a lot of things accessing it, so I didn't want to change it (for now).

@m_magalhaes said in Setting up global plugin structs:

create a pointer and in pluginstart and pluginend take care of assign memory and free it

hadn't thought of that. Seems to work - I'll go with that! Thanks :+1:

WP.