SDL_LoadBMP() displaying a black surface while surface is referenced - c++

Question

Trying to load an image onto an SDL_Surface. However the surface is always black although the bmp is clearly not.
NOTE
This is a working SDL_Window and creating a surface pointer is successful, what is unsuccessful is loading "Kassadin.bmp" which is located in the Code::Blocks project folder. It displays a black surface.
ALL answers on this particular question have NOT solved this problem, before marking this as a duplicate.
#include <iostream>
#include <SDL.h>
#include <stdio.h>
using namespace std;
const int SCREEN_WIDTH = 700;
const int SCREEN_HEIGHT = SCREEN_WIDTH / 12 * 9;
//Create an SDL_Window pointer
SDL_Window* window = NULL;
//Create an SDL_Surface pointer
SDL_Surface* surface = NULL;
//SDL_Surface for an image
SDL_Surface* imgSurface = NULL;
bool init(){
//try init SDL
if(SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0){
cout << "Failed init SDL" << endl;
return false;
}else{
//create window title x pos y pos width height flags
//This doesnt include a surface ie it will be a plain window
window = SDL_CreateWindow("An SDL Window", SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, SDL_WINDOW_SHOWN);
}
if(window == NULL){
cout << "Failed creating SDL window" << endl;
return false;
}else{
// creates surface with an SDL_Window object
surface = SDL_GetWindowSurface(window);
}
return true;
}
bool loadMedia(){
imgSurface = SDL_LoadBMP("Kassadin.bmp");
return true;
}
void close(){
//Sets the SDL_Window pointer to NULL again
SDL_DestroyWindow(window);
window = NULL;
SDL_FreeSurface (imgSurface);
imgSurface = NULL;
//quits
SDL_Quit();
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[]){
if(!init()){
cout << "error init sdl" << endl;
}else{
if(!loadMedia){
cout << "Trouble loading media..." << endl;
}else{
SDL_BlitSurface(imgSurface, NULL, surface, NULL);
}
}
//This is so it's not just a static window ie it can update
SDL_UpdateWindowSurface(window);
SDL_Delay(5000);
close();
return 0;
}

Answer 1

Problemmatic line is
if(!loadMedia){
It is not a function call. What it does is checks address of function loadMedia is NULL, which is always false because function address assigned by linker (as opposed to funciton pointers which you manually assign at runtime).
As you mentioned codeblocks, I suppose you use gcc to compile your code. If only you've added at least -Wall flag (which is a very good practice) compiler would have warned you that you're doing something that very much looks like a mistake:
test2.cpp:70:9: warning: the address of ‘bool loadMedia()’ will always evaluate as ‘true’ [-Waddress]