C++ SFML texture wont load from class

Question

I am working on a simple little game in c++ (SFML).
It involves the need to create objects of the Ghost class and store them in an array, each ghost must also be assigned a texture based one their type, something I have as input to the class init function. Overall my class looks like this:

class Ghost{
    public:
        Sprite sprite;
        Texture texture;
        int type;



        Ghost(int ty=1){
            type = ty;

            if (type == 1){
                texture.loadFromFile("assets/ghost.png");
            } else if (type == 2){
                texture.loadFromFile("assets/monster.png");
            }

            sprite.setTexture(texture);
        }
};

The thing is, when attempting to create a ghost the texture is not loaded. I know the initializer runs since other code in the method do run, but for some reason not the texture loader. In case it is of any use, here is how I load a ghost:

Ghost ghosts[20];

ghosts[0] = Ghost(1);
int numGhosts = 1;

Why doesn't this approach work?

Answer 1

Textures dont mix well with arrays/vectors. The copy operator needs to specified as the default one is not enough to maintain the same functionality in arrays/vectors. Pointers/dynamic textures or a different method needs to be implemented for this to work. I suggest doing the latter and instead of sending a number as an argument to the contructor, sending a premade texture variable.

#include <SFML/Graphics.hpp>
#include <SFML/Window.hpp>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
using namespace sf;

class Ghost{
    public:
        Sprite sprite;

        Ghost(sf::Texture tex){
            sprite.setTexture(tex);

        }
        Ghost(){}
};

int main()
{
    Texture gh,mon;
    gh.loadFromFile("boy.png");
    mon.loadFromFile("girl.png");
    
    Ghost arr[] = {gh, gh, mon, mon, gh};//this
    arr[1].sprite.setTexture(gh);//or this
    
    // create the window
    sf::RenderWindow window(sf::VideoMode(800, 600), "My window");
    window.setFramerateLimit(60);
    // run the program as long as the window is open
    while (window.isOpen())
    {
        // check all the window's events that were triggered since the last iteration of the loop
        sf::Event event;
        while (window.pollEvent(event))
        {

        }


        // clear the window with black color
        window.clear(sf::Color::Black);

        // draw everything here...
        window.draw(arr[1].sprite);
        // end the current frame
        window.display();
    }

    return 0;
}

If you NEED the textures to be in the objects, make them as dynamic variables, this should dissolve the problem then.

if you NEED to use arr[1] = Ghost(1), look into operator overloading in c++ and overload the '=' operator