Re: passing member function pointers to a function

From:
"roy axenov" <r_axenov@mail.ru>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
23 Feb 2007 13:52:09 -0800
Message-ID:
<1172267528.739040.185670@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Please note that my C++ is so rusty it squeaks when I walk.

On Feb 23, 10:36 pm, tbring...@gmail.com wrote:

I am interested in a way of having a class call a general
member function of another class.

Specifically, I am trying to write an ordinary
differential equation class that would solve a general
equation in the form: dx/dt = f(x,t).


I believe you're making a conceptual mistake here. In the
design you're describing f(x,t) is not represented by a
method of a class, but by the class itself, and f a (x,t) -
by an instance of the class representing f(x,t) functions.
That's why you probably shouldn't try passing a pointer to
a method, pass a reference to the object instead. If you
have more general questions about all of this, you probably
should follow-up to comp.object.

The ode class shouldn't know anything about f, except how
to call it.


That's pretty much a textbook description of an interface.

[...]

a member of the ode solver, but then I would have to
write a new ode solver for every new class of functions
to be used for f or to have all these derive from some
kind of base class, which I would prefer to avoid.


That kinda defeats the purpose of OOD, doesn't it?

My question is: is there a simple and elegant way to do
this? I would think that similar issues have been
encountered many times before.


I'm not sure if this will work for you, but consider this
bare-bones implementation:

#include <iostream>

class interface_function
{
  public :
    virtual double operator ( )
      ( double x , double t ) const = 0 ;
} ;

class ode
{
  public :
    static void solve ( const interface_function & f ) ;
} ;

void ode :: solve ( const interface_function & f )
{
  std :: cout <<
    f
    (
      static_cast < double > ( 1 ) ,
      static_cast < double > ( 1 )
    ) ;
  std :: cout << std :: endl ;
}

class f : public interface_function
{
  public :
    double a_ ;
    f ( ) : a_ ( 1 ) { }
    virtual double operator ( )
      ( double x , double t ) const ;
} ;

double f :: operator ( )
  ( double x , double t ) const
{
  return t + x * a_ ;
}

class g : public interface_function
{
  public :
    double a_ ;
    g ( ) : a_ ( 1 ) { }
    virtual double operator ( )
      ( double x , double t ) const ;
} ;

double g :: operator ( )
  ( double x , double t ) const
{
  return t - x * a_ ;
}

int main ( )
{
  f f1 ;
  g g1 ;
  ode :: solve ( f1 ) ;
  ode :: solve ( g1 ) ;
  f1 . a_ = 5 ;
  g1 . a_ = 5 ;
  ode :: solve ( f1 ) ;
  ode :: solve ( g1 ) ;
}

--
roy axenov

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