How can I create a 20x80 board using a dynamic array?-CodePudding

I have to do Conway's Game of Life. I need to create a 20x80 board using a dynamic array (institutional requirements).

const int ROWS = 20
const int COLUMNS = 80

void createBoard(char board[ROWS][COLUMNS]){
    for(int i = 0; i < ROWS; i  ){
        for(int j = 0; j < COLUMNS; j  ){
            board[i][j] = ' ';
        }
    }
    cout << "Created board" << endl;

}

I managed to create this board, but i'm not using a dynamic array here.

I know that to create a dynamic array i have to do the following:

char *array = new char[size];

But how i would implement the dynamic array in the for loop? I cant get my head around on how to convert the alredy made function createBoard into a dynamic array

CodePudding user response：

In the following code snippet function createBoard dynamically allocates and initializes the board as 2D array in row-major order. Function deleteBoard deallocates the board.

const int ROWS = 20;
const int COLUMNS = 80;

char ** createBoard( void )
{
    //allocate array of pointers to board's rows
    char ** board = new char *[ ROWS ];

    for( int rowIdx = 0; rowIdx < ROWS;   rowIdx ){
        //allocate board's rowIdx-th row
        board[ rowIdx ] = new char[ COLUMNS ];

        //initialize content of allocated row
        for( int columnIdx = 0; columnIdx < COLUMNS;   columnIdx )
            board[ rowIdx ][ columnIdx ] = ' '; //accessing element at rowIdx-th row and columnIdx-th columns
    }

    return board;
}

void deleteBoard( char ** aBoard )
{
    //dealocate every row
    for( int rowIdx = 0; rowIdx < ROWS;   rowIdx )
        delete [] aBoard[ rowIdx ];

    //deallocate array of pointers to board's rows
    delete [] aBoard;
}