Decoupling classes
Hi, I've looked through the FAQ, and I can't seem to find an answer to
this one. Can anyone point me to a design pattern that will produce the
desired behaviour illustrated below please? I know why it doesn't print
"W visiting B", and I've read about double dispatch now too. What I'd
really like though is to keep A and V completely unaware of the
existence of B and W and still end up with "W visiting B" getting
printed. Ideally too I'd like to avoid putting a dynamic_cast in
W::visit(A&).
Is there a nice design pattern for doing this? Or an I searching for the
impossible.
Thanks for any advice,
Alan
class A {
};
class V {
public:
virtual void visit(A& a) = 0;
};
class B : public A {
};
class W : public V {
public:
virtual void visit(A& a) {
std::cout << "W visiting A" << std::endl;
}
virtual void visit(B& b) {
std::cout << "W visiting B" << std::endl;
}
};
int main(void) {
B b;
A a;
A *t = &a;
W *v = new W();
v->visit(*t);
t = &b;
v->visit(*t);
return 0;
}