Re: Observer Design Pattern

From:
"Daniel T." <daniel_t@earthlink.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
31 May 2006 07:01:28 -0700
Message-ID:
<1149084088.057231.316500@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>
Krivenok Dmitry wrote:

Hello All!

I am trying to implement my own Design Patterns Library.


You can't do that in general. Design Patterns are at a level higher
than simple code reuse. That said...

The classic "pull model" can be implemented like this:

class Observer
{
public:
    virtual ~Observer() { }
    virtual void update() = 0;
};

class Subject
{
    std::set< Observer* > observers;
public:
    void attach( Observer* o ) {
        observers.insert( o );
    }

    void detach( Observer* o ) {
        observers.erase( o );
    }

    void notify() {
        for_each( observers.begin(), observers.end(),
                                    mem_fun( &Observer::update ) );
    }
};

class MySubject : public Subject
{
    int state;
public:
    int getState() const { return state; }
    void setState( int value ) { state = value; notify(); }
};

class MyObserver : public Observer
{
    MyObserver( const MyObserver& );
    MyObserver& operator=( const MyObserver& );

    MySubject* subject;

public:
    MyObserver( MySubject* subject_ ): subject( subject_ ) {
        subject->attach( this );
    }

    ~MyObserver() {
        subject->detach( this );
    }

    void update() {
        // do something with subject->getState();
    }
};

However, I have found the "push model" to be much more useful:

    template < typename Observer >
class Subject {
    std::set< Observer* > observers;

public:
    void attach( Observer* o ) {
        observers.insert( o );
    }

    void detach( Observer* o ) {
        observers.erase( o );
    }

        template < typename ConcreteSubject >
    void notify( const ConcreteSubject* cs, void (Observer::*fn)( const
ConcreteSubject* ) ) {
        std::set< Observer* >::iterator it = observers.begin();
        while ( it != observers.end() ) {
            Observer* ob( *it++ );
            (ob->*fn)( cs );
        }
    }
};

I don't understand why GoF includes GetState method in Subject's
interface.


They did that because they were looking at SmallTalk examples which
didn't translate well to C++

Main question:
How to avoid type switching in ConcreteObserver::Update(Subject* s)?


As I showed above.

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