Stack overflow error when creating object

Question

I got a console application where I get an Stack Overflow error when starting the application.

Main programm

class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Town town = new Town();

        Console.Write("Press any key to continue . . . ");
        Console.ReadKey(true);
    }
}

My problem is that I want to name all the buildings in the foreach loop with the List of all the building names but it's not working I suppose because it's causing an Stackoverflow and I don't know why. Is there any better way to do this or am I doing something wrong after all somewhere else?

public class Town
{
    public Town town = new Town();
    public List<Buildings> buildings = new List<Buildings>();

    private List<string> buildingNames = new List<string>() {"Town_Hall", "Market", "Residences", "Mortician", "Bank", "Hotel", "Tailor", "Gunsmith", "General_Store", "Sheriff", "Well", "Gate", "Wall"};

    public void ResetTown()
    {
        foreach (Buildings building in town)
        {
            int i = 0;
            i++;
            building.Name = buildingNames[i].ToString();
            building.Level = 0;
        }
    }

    public IEnumerator<Buildings> GetEnumerator() 
    { 
        return buildings.GetEnumerator(); 
    } 
}


public class Buildings
{
    public string Name {get; set;}
    public int Level {get; set;}
}

Did you debug the code? Which code is executing repeatedly? Looks like public Town town = new Town(); is the problem. Why you have that line code? — Chetan
– Chetan, Commented Jan 18, 2019 at 3:16
"It creates a new Town object." which creates a new Town object, which creates a new Town object, which creates a new Town object, which creates a new Town object, etc. — ProgrammingLlama
– ProgrammingLlama, Commented Jan 18, 2019 at 4:27

kennyzx · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-18 03:54:05Z

1

Look at Town's constructor, you will see that it creates a Town instance, which calls itself again, thus entering an endless loop.

In order words, each Town instance contains a Town variable, which in turn contains a Town variable, it will take a billion year and a billion GigaBytes... to constructor a single Town instance.

public Town town = new Town();

Is essentially the same as

Public Town town;
Public Town()
{
    town = new Town(); //constructor calls itself
 }

edited Jan 18, 2019 at 3:54

answered Jan 18, 2019 at 3:16

kennyzx

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Comments

Gauravsa · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-18 03:30:50Z

You can use this also. Mark Building as a class instead of Buildings. Decouple the buildings from town and inject it via a constructor:

Also, your int i = 0; i++ has bugs and can cause IndexOutOfRangeException.

public class Town
{
    private List<Building> buildings;
    private List<string> buildingNames = new List<string>() {"Town_Hall", "Market", "Residences", "Mortician", "Bank", "Hotel", "Tailor", "Gunsmith", "General_Store", "Sheriff", "Well", "Gate", "Wall"};

    public Town(List<Building> buildings)
    {
       this.buildings = buildings;
    }

    public void ResetTown()
    {
        int i = 0;
        foreach (Building building in buildings)
        {
            building.Name = buildingNames[i].ToString();
            building.Level = 0;
            i++;
        }
    }

    public IEnumerator<Building> GetEnumerator() 
    { 
        return buildings.GetEnumerator(); 
    } 
}

public class Building
{
    public string Name {get; set;}
    public int Level {get; set;}
}

halfer · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-16 19:16:00Z

0

It's recursive; each time you create a town, you create a town, it goes on forever, the universe collapses into a singularity:

public class Town
{
    public Town town = new Town()
    ...

What you probably want is this

public class Town
{
    // when you auto initialise a property, 
    // it gets created when your create the class
    // this is your recursion, lets get rid of it as its completely
    // unneeded 
    //public Town town = new Town();
    public List<Buildings> buildings = new List<Buildings>();

    private List<string> buildingNames = new List<string>() {"Town_Hall", "Market", "Residences", "Mortician", "Bank", "Hotel", "Tailor", "Gunsmith", "General_Store", "Sheriff", "Well", "Gate", "Wall"};

    public void ResetTown()
    {
        // notice now we dont need a reference to town
        // we "are" the town
        foreach (Buildings building in this)
        {
            int i = 0;
            i++;
            building.Name = buildingNames[i].ToString();
            building.Level = 0;
        }
    }

    public IEnumerator<Buildings> GetEnumerator() 
    { 
        return buildings.GetEnumerator(); 
    } 
}

Usage is the same

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Town town = new Town();
}

edited Sep 16, 2022 at 19:16

halfer

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answered Jan 18, 2019 at 3:17

TheGeneral

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1 Comment

Dennis Over a year ago

And how do I use the town in the main program when I don't initialize the object?

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