Re: Object Factory and pre-main registering of classes

From:
Paavo Helde <paavo@nospam.please.ee>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 11 May 2009 02:37:35 -0500
Message-ID:
<Xns9C086C1977813nobodyebiee@216.196.109.131>
John <gh14tq5@yahoo.com> kirjutas:

Hi,

I am trying to create an object factory, AFactory, that allows new
object types (of base class A) to be added without changing the

factory.

3. If I compile files separately, link the factory and related classes
into a library and then link the main routine with the library

       g++ -c A*.cpp
       ar rvs liba.a A*.o
       g++ main.cpp -L. -la

the classes do not register themselves before the main function. A
workaround I found was to put the following in AFactory::GetInstance()
function

  // FIXME: This forces the maps to register. There should be some

way

  // to force the registration without creating this reverse

dependency.

  if (m_factory.m_callback.empty())
  {
     CreateCallBack fnc;
     fnc = AType1::CreateA;
     // Add all : fnc = ATypeX::CreateA;
  }

I don't want to do this because it creates a reverse dependency that
requires modification of the factory to add a new class.


After re-reading your post I realize this is indeed too tight coupling,
meaning that the factory code must know all A* types. What I would do,
would be to add something like this into AFactory code:

// AFactory::GetFactory():
if (!initialized) {
     initialized=true; // to avoid infinite recursion
     RegisterClassesInLibraryA();
     RegisterClassesInLibraryB();
     // ...
}

Now in each library (so far you have only one), define the corresponding
registering function like this:

void RegisterClassesInLibraryA() {
     AFactory::GetFactory().RegisterA("a1", &AType1::CreateA);
     AFactory::GetFactory().RegisterA("a2", &AType2::CreateA);
     // ...
}

So the detailed knowledge about your classes is limited to the library
itself. All you have to expose from the library is a single registering
function with a trivial signature.

hth
Paavo

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