Possible to check if object array element is empty?

[while(!success)]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anybody knew of a method to check if an element in a object array was empty.
for example, lets say I have the class "XYZ"

class XYZ
{
    int x;
    string y;
};

then in main if i declared the object array:

int main()
{
    XYZ ar[10];
    return 0;
}

is it possible to check if a part of that array is empty?
for example:

for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    if(ar[i].x != NULL) //is there anyway to make this comparison?
    { //CODE HERE }
}

[iamthwee]

I guess you could initialise all 10 to contain a placeholder values.

When you loop through any which have actual values will show the other will have the placeholder values.

There may be other ways.

[mrnutty]

For that case you need to define what empty means. For example it could be this

struct Foo{
  int x;
  string y;
  Foo(): x(0), y(){};
}
//it is empty only if x == 0 and y contains no letter
bool isEmpty(const Foo& f){ return x == 0 && y.empty(); }

int main(){
   Foo f[10];
   bool isFirstElementEmpty = isEmpty( f[0] );
   return 0;
}

Another way is to use pointers.

 struct Foo{
   int x;
   string y;
   Foo(): x(0), y(){};
 }

 int main(){
   typedef boost::shared_ptr<Foo> FooPtr;
   FooPtr foo[10];
   bool isFirstElementEmpty = f[0].get() != NULL;
 }

[while(!success)]

thanks for the input guys, I'll try out your suggestions