Is a "factory" method the right pattern?
- by jdt141
Hey all -
So I'm working to improve an existing implementation. I have a number of polymorphic classes that are all composed into a higher level container class. The problem I'm dealing with at the moment is that the higher level container class, well, sucks. It looks something like this, which I really don't have a problem with (as the polymorphic classes in the container should be public). My real issue is the constructor...
/*
* class1 and class 2 derive from the same superclass
*/
class Container
{
public:
boost::shared_ptr<ComposedClass1> class1;
boost::shared_ptr<ComposedClass2> class2;
private:
...
}
/*
* Constructor - builds the objects that we need in this container.
*/
Container::Container(some params)
{
class1.reset(new ComposedClass1(...));
class2.reset(new ComposedClass2(...));
}
What I really need is to make this container class more re-usable. By hard-coding up the member objects and instantiating them, it basically isn't and can only be used once. A factory is one way to build what I need (potentially by supplying a list of objects and their specific types to be created?) Other ways to get around this problem? Seems like someone should have solved it before... Thanks!
