How to pass data to and from two forms?

[V5dave]

am calling Form2 from Form1, and depending on the input in Form2, I want to enable/disable buttons in Form1 when I exit. However, because I need to call Form2 header before I define class Form1, Form1 is not defined when the compiler sees my call to it. If I therefore call Form1 header in Form2 header, then the compiler will see my call to Form2 before Form2 is defined!!.

Basically therefore, I wanna be able to call each form from each form, but have to define and make the call in one first.

This seems to me a very obvious thing to want to do, but I can't figure out myself how to do it, as you can't declare an extern class, or see any examples on the net of how to do it in Visual C++.net.

Any help appreciated, as is a real stumbling block for me.

UltimateNewbie

[Chainsaw]

Well, I can think of a few solutions. One is to have a parent class of "AForm" that both Form1 and Form2 inherit from. Then both can refer to the .h file that AForm is defined in, no sweat.

Another is to use a forward declaration of form 2 in form 1's header file.

class Form2; // forward declaration
. . .
class Form1
{
public:
    TellForm1Something( Form1* pForm1 );
};

In this case, the forward declaration allows you to refer to a pointer to form1. You can't refer to form1 in a way that would require the compiler to know its size or contents, of course, but pointers to form1 are ok.

Hope this helps!

[Chainsaw]

Oops! Too early in the morning to post; need more coffee. Here's what I MEANT to say:

class Form2; // forward declaration
. . .
class Form1
{
public:
    TellForm2Something( Form2* pForm2 );
};

Sheesh. Naru was right about me! Lazy AND stupid!

[ZuK]

Sheesh. Naru was right about me! Lazy AND stupid!

There is no need to take Naru's comments too serious.

[Narue]

>There is no need to take Naru's comments too serious.
Anyone who takes me serious here is lazy, stupid, and foolish. :D;)