Question

I’ve been given this task and having quite a bit of trouble with information being replaced by new data. When a new customer is created they have to create a new basic account. This works fine but as I’m trying to allow customers with multiple types of accounts each with their own rules such as student/current which each contain their own values.

For some reason my Money value of a account becomes whatever value is currently set and for some reason each account even for different customers share the value inside. So if account1 has £200 then account2 is then created with £300. account1 will then be set to £300.

Customer.h

Customer(std::string sFirstName, std::string sLastName, 
    std::string sAddressLnA,
    std::string sAddressLnB,
    std::string sCity,
    std::string sCounty,
    std::string sPostcode,
    AccountManager* bankAccount);

    AccountManager* getAccount(void);

    //outside class
    std::ostream& operator << (std::ostream& output, Customer& customer);

Customer.cpp

//Part of a method but i've shrunk it down
AccountManager account(H);
AccountManager accRef = account; //This the issue?
Customer c(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, &accRef);
customerList.insert(c);
showPersonDetails();

//Output
ostream& operator << (ostream& output, Customer& customer)
{
    output << customer.getFirstName() << " " << customer.getLastName() << endl
        << customer.getaddressLnA() << endl
        << customer.getaddressLnB() << endl
        << customer.getcity() << endl
        << customer.getcounty() << endl
        << customer.getpostcode() << endl
        << (*customer.getAccount()) << endl;
    return output;

AccountManager.h

class AccountManager
{
private:
    double money;
public:
    AccountManager(double amount);
    ~AccountManager(void);
    double getMoney();

};

//Print
std::ostream& operator << (std::ostream& output, AccountManager& accountManager);

AccountManager.cpp

using namespace std;

AccountManager::AccountManager(double amount)
{
    money = amount;
}

AccountManager::~AccountManager()
{
}

double AccountManager::getMoney()
{
    return money;
}

ostream& operator << (ostream& output, AccountManager& accountManager)
{
    //Type of account
    output << "Account Money: " << accountManager.getMoney() << endl;
    return output;
}

Answer 1

AccountManager accRef = account; //This the issue?
Customer c(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, &accRef);

You create an account as a local variable, pass a pointer to it to the Customer constructor, the Customer stores that pointer, then “a method” terminates, the local variable passes out of scope, and the Customer is left with a dangling pointer. Then you dereference the pointer and get strange results.

(Why does Customer store the account by reference anyway?)