Question

I have a list of Star structs. These structs are in a std::list

I am double looping this list and compairing there locations to detect a collision. When A collision is found I will delete Star with the lowest mass. But how can I delete the Star when I am in the double Loop, and keep the loop going to check for more collisions?

It’s worth mentioning that the second loop is a reverse loop.

Here is some code

void UniverseManager::CheckCollisions()
{
    std::list<Star>::iterator iStar1;
    std::list<Star>::reverse_iterator iStar2;
    bool totalbreak = false;

    for (iStar1 = mStars.begin(); iStar1 != mStars.end(); iStar1++)
    {
        for (iStar2 = mStars.rbegin(); iStar2 != mStars.rend(); iStar2++)
        {
            if (*iStar1 == *iStar2)
                break;
            Star &star1 = *iStar1;
            Star &star2 = *iStar2;

            if (CalculateDistance(star1.mLocation, star2.mLocation) < 10)
            {
                // collision
                // get heaviest star
                if (star1.mMass > star2.mMass)
                {
                    star1.mMass += star2.mMass;
                    // I need to delete the star2 and keep looping;
                }
                else
                {
                    star2.mMass += star1.mMass;
                    // I need to delete the star1 and keep looping;
                }

            }
        }

        }
}

Answer 1

You need to utilize the return value of the erase method like so.

iStar1 = mStars.erase(iStar1);
erase = true;
if (iStar1 == mStars.end())
   break; //or handle the end condition

//continue to bottom of loop

if (!erase)
   iStar1++; //you will need to move the incrementation of the iterator out of the loop declaration, because you need to make it not increment when an element is erased.

if you don’t increment the iterator if an item is erased and check if you deleted the last element then you should be fine.