C++ Struct,Reference and Instancing the right way? - c++

Question

I'm creating a replay system Basically it stores user inputs as:
std::list<ReplayBuffer>
which is a:
struct ReplayBuffer
{
std::bitset<10> flags;
float frameTime;
uint64_t frameID;
};
now I've created two more structs, ReplayFile (the file information), and ReplayFileWriter(Write the file information into a file of course)
struct ReplayFile
{
ReplayFile(std::list<ReplayBuffer>* _buffers) {
time_t t = time(0);
date = ctime(&t);
_version = 1;
buffers = *_buffers;
}
uint16_t _version;
char* date;
std::list<ReplayBuffer> buffers;
};
struct ReplayFileWriter
{
std::ofstream file;
ReplayFileWriter(ReplayFile *data) {
file.open("replay.cdr", std::ofstream::out);
file << data;
file.close();
}
};
What I want to do is, type this:
ReplayFileWriter(new ReplayFile(&buffers));
so I pass to ReplayFile the adress of the buffers (list) and to ReplayFileWriter the adress a instance of ReplayFile) how I'm supposed to do this (I'm new to cpp, watched some videos into pointer, but when using as parameters is hard to find the right way to place "* and &"

Answer 1

What you are probably looking for is something like this:
struct ReplayBuffer { /* as in your code */ };
struct ReplayFile {
explicit ReplayFile(const std::list<ReplayBuffer>& _buffers)
: _version(1), buffers(_buffers) {
time_t t = time(nullptr);
date = ctime(&t);
}
uint16_t _version;
std::string date;
std::list<ReplayBuffer> buffers;
};
ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const ReplayFile& data) {
/* Write contents of `data` to `os` here.
Implementation left as an exercise for the reader. */
return os;
}
void WriteReplayFile(const ReplayFile& data) {
file.open("replay.cdr", std::ofstream::out);
file << data;
file.close();
}
int main() {
std::list<ReplayBuffer> buffers = ...; // initialized somehow.
WriteReplayFile(ReplayFile(buffers));
}
The interesting part is in operator<<. That's where you get to define your file format.