Any particular reason for not checking Gun pointer existence?

[kolyamba]

Hello,

Just a quick question, is there any reason for not checking for validity(existence) of a AGun* Gun?

in ShooterCharacter.cpp:

void AShooterCharacter::Shoot()
{
		Gun->PullTrigger();
}

Shouldn’t it be as we were taught:

void AShooterCharacter::Shoot()
{
	if (Gun)
	{
		Gun->PullTrigger();
	}
}

[DanM]

With how the game is designed it should be impossible for it to become nullptr. It’s created at BeginPlay before a player could call that function and is never destroyed during play so it should save a branch.

You could add check(Gun); which will alert you if it is ever nullptr during development and is removed in a shipping build.

[kolyamba]

Thanks for the answer, but why is it never desroyed during the game? I mean, later on we will be adding a death feature to our Character, so the Gun object could be destroyed as well?

[DanM]

It’s only single player so it will be destroyed when the game is. Though even if you implement respawning and having dead actors destroyed after x seconds you wouldn’t be calling through the destroyed gun.

Either the character and gun get destroyed and you detach from the character to a spectator view. And/or you respawn with a brand new gun along with it.