Question

I have the following struct:

struct Transaction {
    Transaction(Book& bb, Patron& pp, Date dd)
        : b(bb), p(pp), d(dd) { }
        Book& b;
        Patron& p
        Date d;
};

When I try to put an object of type Transaction into a vector<Transaction>v_t with a push_back, it won’t work. A screenful of errors breaks lose.

Is it because I have references as members of my object?

Answer 1

You’ll need an assignment and copy operator for the type since it contains a reference. STL container objects must be copyable AND assignable (and this won’t be possible with your reference unfortunately).

Check this thread:

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/cplusplus-programming/106779-copy-constructor-class-const-reference-member.html

It discusses the problem and some alternate solutions, though it basically says don’t have a reference member in container type.