movement not working ncurses game - c++

Question

I am making an ncurses game which has a spaceship fire bullets at other enemies.
I've got the ship firing bullets how ever when I fire more than one bullet, only the latest bullet will move and the rest will stay still.
int i=0 , j=-1;
switch(key){
case KEY_UP: playership.row=changeRow(playership.row,-1,playership.col); /* move up */
break;
case KEY_DOWN: playership.row=changeRow(playership.row,+1,playership.col); /* move down */
break;
case KEY_LEFT:playership.col=changeColumn(playership.col,-1,playership.row); /* move left */
break;
case KEY_RIGHT:playership.col=changeColumn(playership.col,+1,playership.row); /* move right */
break;
case ' ': {j++; bullets[0].col=playership.col+5; bullets[j].row=playership.row-2 ;break;}
default: break; /* do nothing if other keys */
}
if (j!=-1){
attrset(COLOR_PAIR(2));
mvprintw(bullets[j].row,bullets[0].col,"%c",bullet);
mvprintw(bullets[j].row+1,bullets[0].col," ");
bullets[j].row=bullets[j].row-1;
refresh();
}
I tried to implement the suggestion from the comments in this answer to my earlier question, but I don't think I've done it right:
If you can have 5 bullets at once, you need to store their positions.
If you have int bullet_pos[5] that would be fine. You could use -1 in
each position to say that no bullets are active. Then when you want to
fire one you search the array to find the first position that is -1
and change it to 0. When you draw the bullets, you go through the
array and draw a bullet for any position that is not -1, and update
its position.

Answer 1

If you don't already, try adding a flag to your bullet structure. Something like alive.
When you want to fire, you check through your array and find an unused bullet position (if any):
for( int i = 0; i < MAX_BULLETS; i++ ) {
if( !bullets[i].alive ) {
bullets[i].alive = true;
bullets[i].row = playership.row;
bullets[i].col = playership.col+5;
break;
}
}
Then when you update or draw:
for( int i = 0; i < MAX_BULLETS; i++ ) {
if( bullets[i].alive ) {
attrset(COLOR_PAIR(2));
mvprintw(bullets[i].row, bullets[i].col, "%c", bullet);
mvprintw(bullets[i].row+1, bullets[i].col, " " );
bullets[i].col++;
// TODO check for bullet death. If bullet is done, set `alive` to false.
}
}
refresh();