Question

I’m completely new to C++.

Bashing my head against this error for over an hour. Probably someone with experience can see right through it.

The following code gives an error:

class TimeTravellingCellar { 

private:

public:
  int determineProfit (int [] profit, int [] decay) { 
    int N = sizeof(profit)/sizeof(decay); 
    int max = 0; 
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) { 
      for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) { 
        if (i == j) continue; 
        if (profit [i] - decay [j] > max) 
          max = profit [i] - decay [j]; 
      } 
    } 
    return max; 
  } 
}

Visual Studio Express puts a red line under profit in the parameters of determineProfit and says:

expected a ')' before identifier profit.

I will appreciate some help.
Thanks!

Answer 1

You don’t declare arrays like that in C++, the [] needs to go after the name.
Also note you need to have a semicolon after the class declaration.

class TimeTravellingCellar { 

private:

public:
  int determineProfit (int profit[], int decay[]) { 
    int N = sizeof(profit)/sizeof(decay); 
    int max = 0; 
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) { 
      for (int j = 0; j < N; j++) { 
        if (i == j) continue; 
        if (profit [i] - decay [j] > max) 
          max = profit [i] - decay [j]; 
      } 
    } 
    return max; 
  } 
};

Edit: also remember that sizeof(pointer) will return the number of bytes of the pointer type, not the number of elements in the array. So if you have an int array, sizeof(array) == sizeof(int). Your N value will always equal 1.