Component's Entity is rawptr

[SpiderPig]

Is there a reason the only accessible reference to a components entity is a raw pointer?

		std::weak_ptr<Entity> entityptr;  //<-- not accessable?
		std::map<WString, std::vector<Connection> > connections;
		friend CComponent;

	protected:
		virtual void ReceiveSignal(shared_ptr<Component> sender, const WString& input, std::vector<std::any> arguments);
		Entity* entity;//<-- Use this one?
		virtual void Start();
		virtual void Update();

 

[Josh]

The entity "owns" the component". Otherwise you would have to maintain a handle to every component, to prevent them from being deleted. If the component also has a shared pointer to the entity, it would create a circular reference, and neither would ever be deleted.

Normally I would use a weak pointer and have a GetEntity() method, but for components this seemed annoying, so I just used a raw pointer.

When the component is detached from the entity, this pointer is set to NULL automatically, so I think this is fairly safe.

[SpiderPig]

Can a raw pointer be cast to a shared_ptr?  There was just a few things I wanted to create inside component and had to pass the owner entity.  I'm sure I'll find another way though so it's no problem.

[Josh]

auto e = entity->As<Entity>()

 

[Josh]

For the reason you pointed out, the raw pointer is removed and you should use GetEntity() instead.