Re: template classes: inheritance problem

From:
Bart van Ingen Schenau <bart@ingen.ddns.info>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Fri, 6 Feb 2009 12:37:59 CST
Message-ID:
<14521897.R9bRmK1vLe@ingen.ddns.info>
vl106 wrote:

On 5 Feb., 15:04, Ulrich Eckhardt <eckha...@satorlaser.com> wrote:

Seeing your other posting here, I have a question: why do you insist
on using templates? AFAICT, they just don't fit your goals of
creating different objects at runtime, though I'm guessing a bit what
those goals could actually be.


Thanks for your answers. I think templates are a good solution to my
problem:
[PSEUDOCODE]
void receive_message(int messageId, char* messageData) {
    Base& newMessage = Factory::create(messageId, messageData);
    newMessage.process();
}

The receive_message function will stay pretty stable. If new kind of
message
is "invented" only a new specialication has to be created.

What really differs is the process method. Each specialization (based
on messageId) has ist own (and different) behaviour.


This still does not look like a situation where templates are the proper
solution.
I would go for a classic OO design and a factory method:

class Message {
public:
   static auto_ptr<Message> create(int id, char* payload);
   virtual void process() { throw "unknown message"; }
   int getId() const { return id; }
   virtual ~Message() {}
protected:
   Message(int id, char* payload);
   char* payload;
   int id;
};

class SomeMessage : public Message {
public:
   void process();
   SomeMessage(int id, char* payload) : Message(id, payload) {}
};

class SomeOtherMessage : public Message {
public:
   void process();
   SomeOtherMessage(int id, char* payload) : Message(id, payload) {}
};

auto_ptr<Message> Message::create(int id, char* payload)
{
   switch (id)
   {
   case 1:
     return new SomeMessage(id, payload);
   case 2:
     return new SomeOtherMessage(id, payload);
   default:
     return new Message(id, payload);
   }
}

When adding a new message, you only have to define a new subclass, with
the appropriate process() implementation, and update the
Message::create function to recognise the new message-id.
And there are even techniques to do the last part automatically on
program startup by letting message classes register themselves.

Bart v Ingen Schenau
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