Re: Need advice on data structure

From:
Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.spamfilter@virtualinfinity.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 09 May 2008 17:35:13 -0700
Message-ID:
<48247cf0$0$22610$7836cce5@newsrazor.net>
nomad wrote:

I am writing a c++ program and will be implementing a console menu driven
prompt. The menu will have several options, and sub-menus may also have
multiple options. What is the best data structure to use? A tree? The STL
does not implement a tree, so I'd have to create my own.

Thanks

How about you don't think about the actual structure, and use classes
instead:
abstract class menuoption {
   private:
      std::string display;
      std::string selectionValue;
   protected:
      menuoption(std::string display, std::string selectionValue) :
                 display(display), selectionValue(selectionValue) {}

   public:
     virtual void selected() = 0;
}

class menu : public menuoption {
    private:
       std::vector<menuoption> options;
    public:
       menu(std::string display, std::string selectionValue) :
          menuoption(display, selectionValue) {}
       void selected() {
        /*
          showMenuOptions();
          menuoption &option = getUserResponse();
          option.selected();
          */
       }
}

Warning, if you're menus have circular references, you can get a stack
overflow with this method. If that is the case, a finite state machine
might be the way to go, but the model will look similar.

--
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