globally available functions and resources

no-reply@allegro.cc (Ariesnl) — Fri, 20 May 2016 17:47:06 +0000

I'm planning to write something like a soundmanager for my games. There will only be one such a manager and everything that makes noise will use it.
What will be the better option

variables and functions in a namespace.
a class with only static members and functions
singleton class

What would you do, and why ?
Thnx for stopping by;-)

no-reply@allegro.cc (GullRaDriel) — Fri, 20 May 2016 18:14:33 +0000

Variable and function in a namespace if you want to stick to C++ style,
Class and only static things if you wanna make it C style.

In ANY case, not a singleton one. Why ? Because it looks awful.

If I were doing it in C++ I would go with #1 as it's the case which will allow the best control over the api when mixed with other api's.

no-reply@allegro.cc (Audric) — Fri, 20 May 2016 18:40:49 +0000

If there's one of those patterns that you've not practiced, it may be an opportunity to try. In this case, you can't shoot yourself in the foot : the sound system depends on a unique resource which is your PC's sound output, you are not likely to suddenly need multiple concurrent sound systems.

Otherwise, I would use whatever looks the most like the neighboring code.
For example if your code is mostly doing allegro5 calls like al_something(), I would prefer to have snd_something(), rather than Sound.Something()

no-reply@allegro.cc (Mark Oates) — Fri, 20 May 2016 19:35:54 +0000

For a sound manager, I would probably go with an object, something like this:

#SelectExpand
  1class Sound
  2{
  3private:
  4   class SoundRecord
  5   {
  6   public:
  7      std::string identifier;
  8      ALLEGRO_SAMPLE *sample;
  9      // ...
 10   };
 11   std::vector<SoundRecord *> samples;
 12
 13public:
 14   // some methods like...
 15   bool preload(std::string identifier, std::string filename);
 16   void play(std::string identifier);
 17   void start_stream(std::string identifier);
 18   void fade_out(std::string identifier, float speed);
 19   // ...
 20};

Focus on the interface you want more than anything else.

no-reply@allegro.cc (Ariesnl) — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:27:11 +0000

It is gonna use allegro anyway..
but I need a nicer way of loading and playing sounds than the hard coded mess I have right now. I also need a way to play continues sound (loop) and stop the correct instance at the right moment. Right now I use a sample ID returned from al_play_sound and a bool that tells me if that instance is playing. But when you have a lot of looping sounds that must be stopped at the right moment.. it's not such a nice solution.

I also noticed you cannot compare sampleIDs ... ??

no-reply@allegro.cc (Audric) — Fri, 20 May 2016 21:04:35 +0000

Last time I had such need, I linked it the opposite way : If an emitted sound could be cancelled / interrupted later ("Ka-me-ha-me... - Ouch!"), the emitter passed his own identifier.
It was a bit long ago, but I think I used the memory address of the calling class instance, stored as a void pointer. The code handling a game character would typically call play_sound("kamehama", this), or if the sound had to run to completion no matter what, it would be play_sound("boom", NULL)