How to Populate a 'Tree' structure 'Declaratively'
- by mackenir
I want to define a 'node' class/struct and then declare a tree of these nodes in code in such a way that the way the code is formatted reflects the tree structure, and there's not 'too much' boiler plate in the way.
Note that this isn't a question about data structures, but rather about what features of C++ I could use to arrive at a similar style of declarative code to the example below.
Possibly with C++0X this would be easier as it has more capabilities in the area of constructing objects and collections, but I'm using Visual Studio 2008.
Example tree node type:
struct node
{
string name;
node* children;
node(const char* name, node* children);
node(const char* name);
};
What I want to do:
Declare a tree so its structure is reflected in the source code
node root =
node("foo",
[
node("child1"),
node("child2",
[
node("grand_child1"),
node("grand_child2"),
node("grand_child3"
]),
node("child3")
]);
NB: what I don't want to do:
Declare a whole bunch of temporary objects/colls and construct the tree 'backwards'
node grandkids[] = node[3]
{
node("grand_child1"),
node("grand_child2"),
node("grand_child3"
};
node kids[] = node[3]
{
node("child1"),
node("child2", grandkids)
node("child3")
};
node root = node("foo", kids);
