creating objects "on the fly"while an app is running

Question

in c# how do i create a user defined amount of an object? let me explain. im writing a simple game. rather than specify in the code that there will be 5 bad guy objects i would like the user to decide  hey i think il create 7 bad guys today and the computer will create 7 bad guy objects. now i dont know how to do this.im sure it involves a loop but after that im stuck. any ideas

alobiuc · Answer

Hashtables would be indeed another solution yet it stores pairs of keys and values. So I think you should use classes for a more flexible implementation of your objects. I assume (from your posts) that you're somehow new to programming especially to OOP (no offense). So you can create a class which will define all of your object's properties and will provide methods to retrieve and modify them: class Bad_guy { protected string Name; protected int level_of_danger;//couldn't come up with something else...it's just an example public Bad_guy(string name int level) { Name=name; level_of_danger=level; } public string getName() { return Name; } //...any other methods } Basically this is the idea. Then in your main class (UI perhaps) you can use arrays of Bad_guy type to manipulate as many bad guys as you want: Bad_guy[] badguys=new Bad_guy[10];//10 or else badguys[index]=new Bad_guy(somename2);//again just an example The index (must be an int) will allow you to access any member of the array.

bilnaad · Answer

Ojects in an array are not acessed by name but by index. Maybe another solution for you is to create an hashtable instance and put the badguys in that collection.

schmintan · Answer

what will each bad guy be named?how is the name for each object in the array created?

alobiuc · Answer

Well it's quite easy if you're indeed using objects. Let's say a bad guy is an instance of the Bad_guy class. Then you can use an array to create as many bad guys as needed. The number of bad guys can be entered by the user (through the console or let's say a TextBox): Bad_guy[] badguys=new Bad_guy[n];//n is entered by the user for(int i=0;i<n;i++)//the loop you mentioned badguys[i]=new Bad_guy(parameters); That should do it.