It's not bad practice, it's a good practice; better would be to remove the header dependency by using forward declaration, or pointer to objects in your classes instead of "direct" class members /// would be ok. ... #ifndef _A_CLASS_H_ #include "AClass.h" #endif class CAnotherClass { CAClass m_AClass; } /// would be better. ... class CAClass; class CAnotherClass { CAClass* m_pAClass; } In the long run, including headers in cpp files will not be as costly as including them in header files ( see "Large Scale C++ Software Design" by Lakos ) if you need to include a file in another header file, you'd better use #ifndef ... #end around the include directive to limit the damages. Maximilien Lincourt "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with backup tapes." ("Computer Networks" by Andrew S Tannenbaum )

Thought this might belong in the lounge! Thanks for the good points and info (esp. Hockey for the spell-check example and "polymorhpic executables". I guess it borders on self-modifying code). I have never used (As in personally edited) an .ini file and have never run Regedit or toyed with the Registry API (Though after reading up on it, It doesn't look that hard). I liked the comments about "the inexperienced" "playing" with ini files or worse, the registry. My point here is the application should provide the interface (i.e Tools | Options) to change the program's user settings. Anyone who goes into a (.ini) file and "changes stuff" should expect the program to behave in a not-so-qhkwbefnlkjqw manner. Hey I have Word…but IE doesn’t go looking for the “I have a Spell-checker” Key! Is it in the settings…? Cheers for the feedback. If sex is a pain in the ass, then your name must be Joe Woodbury or Jason Henderson!

Does this mean that I have to create a pointer to a ? As opposed to a pointer to a function with any set of params. Obviously when I call it, I will have to pass the right param types, but do I have to declare the pointer to have those param types ? Or am I flogging a dead camel ? If sex is a pain in the ass, then you are doing it wrong!

Thanks The CBitmap is a class of mine: should probably call it CMyBitmap ? it has it's own constructor, loader and draw function. So A CMyTiledBitmap is a CMyBitmap with some extra members (for the tiling info). So, If I change all occurrences of CMyBitmap with CMyTiledBitmap in a preexisting program, the program will still work, but will have greater resource overhead. So Why do I make the CMyBitmap constructor virtual ? Cheers If sex is a pain in the ass, then you are doing it wrong!

try this function. It should work int Compare(const char* mask, const char* s) { const char* cp=0; const char* mp=0; for (; *s&&*mask!='*'; mask++,s++) if (*mask!=*s&&*mask!='?') return 0; for (;;) { if (!*s) { while (*mask=='*') mask++; return !*mask; } if (*mask=='*') { if (!*++mask) return 1; mp=mask; cp=s+1; continue; } if (*mask==*s||*mask=='?') { mask++, s++; continue; } mask=mp; s=cp++; } } "A robust program is resistant to errors -- it either works correctly, or it does not work at all; whereas a fault tolerant program must actually recover from errors."

Glad that i could help you. and .at is Austria. :) Mfg DarkMarine

Cheers. I found some code that had the include winmm.lib and used that: worked fine. Can anyone shed light on why the object source files had no problem when they had the same include statements ? Thanks for all responses: much appreciated.;) If sex is a pain in the ass, then you are doing it wrong!