Re: Implementing weird kind of graph in C++

On Dec 13, 9:52 pm, mike3 <mike4...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Notice, you are now at a completely different level of thinking about
your original problem. At first you mixed details of the
implementation, like pointers, into your considerations. Now you focus
on caring about how your classes should interact, i.e. the design
level. I consider this a progress.

In your prototype code you always consider constructing handlers, or
adding members that have class types defined externally to the class
you are setting up. Maybe it could help to review your design not to
consist of classes that manages / contains objects of other classes
exclusively. Instead, use class inheritance where appropriate.

The thing I do most of the time is asking myself, (1) should new class
A *be* a special case of existing class B, or (2) should class A
*have* one or more instances of class B. For the first case, I choose
inheritance, for the latter case members. This simple test is not a
dogma, many times you can do things the other way around just as well
or even better. I tend to get working programs by this approach, so it
can't be all bad.

In your problem, my stomach feeling tells me class Web is a special
case of a general graph. Therefore I believe its a good idea to derive
Web from one of the boost classes and provide its interface to the
public. This gives you the added benefit of all graph algorithms
available from boost immediately working with your class at no extra
cost. Overload any of the methods that need to do stuff special to
your Web class. This should take care of your worries about somebody
calling methods of your base class interface.

"String" is a different issue. A Web *has* strings, so here a book
keeping helper class may be a good approach. If you do not like to
export it outside of Web, just make it an embedded private class.
Maybe you should choose a better name because 'string' has a different
notion for other people that may add confusion.

So a very crunched (no proper C++ !) set up might be:

class Web : public boost::somegraphclass {
private:
   class String { ... }; // describes one string in a web
   std::vector<String> mystrings; // or other container, the strings
in *this* web
   void BookKeepingMethod1();
   void BookKeepingMethod2(); // also can wrap these in a handler
class

public:
   void MyWebAlgorithm(); // your specialized public interface.

};

best,

 MiB.