Breakout paddle disappears if I try to add color to the bricks

Question

I'm working on Breakout and making good progress. I'm at the point where I'd like to add color to the bricks. I've implemented an array of colors that the 'if' loop iterates through to add color. The bricks color perfectly, however the script seems to mess up the paddle initialization.

If I do not add color to the bricks, then the paddle initializes. If I try and add color to the bricks, the paddle does not initialize.

Any idea what might be happening?

Regards!

Alex

// Initializes window with a grid of bricks.
void initBricks(GWindow window)
{
    for (int r = 0; r < ROWS; r++)
    {
        for (int c = 0; c < COLS; c++)
        {
        char *colors[] = {"00FFFF", "FF00FF","FFFF00", "000000"};

        GRect initBricks = newGRect((2 + (c * 40)), (50 + (r * 15)), 36, 10);
        setColor(initBricks, colors[r]);
        setFilled(initBricks, true);

        add(window, initBricks);
        }
    }     
}

// Instantiates paddle in bottom-middle of window.
GRect initPaddle(GWindow window)
{
    GRect initPaddle = newGRect(170, 540, 60, 12);

    setColor(initPaddle, "000000");
    setFilled(initPaddle, true);

    add(window, initPaddle);

    while (true)
    {
        GEvent event = getNextEvent(MOUSE_EVENT);

        if (event != NULL)
        {
            if (getEventType(event) == MOUSE_MOVED) 
            {
                double x = getX(event) - 30;
                setLocation(initPaddle, x, 540);
            }
        }
    }

    return NULL;
}

Answer 1

Without seeing the value of ROWS, I suspect that the problem is an interaction between the number of rows and the number of colors in your code. If you have 5 or more rows of bricks, it is choking when it hits the 5th row because your color array only has 4 colors or elements. When r in your outer loop hits 4, it's trying to access colors[4], which doesn't exist. Instead of throwing an error, it just locks up. When there are only 4 rows of bricks, it works fine. If ROWS is 5, just add another color.

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