Re: [Boost-users] [review] Formal Fast-Track review of the Boost.Functional/Factory library - 2 days left

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-12-21 15:31:29

Nat Goodspeed:

> The issue I mentioned above keeps recurring across different projects: 
> given a string from a file or a script, I need to instantiate a distinct 
> C++ class corresponding to that string. I mention an abstract base class 
> because I don't know how, other than virtual functions, I should access 
> the features of such an object.
> 
> I would dearly love to see the best way to leverage boost::factory to 
> address this problem. If, in the process, I learn new tricks myself, all 
> the better!

Typically you'll have something like

std::map< std::string, boost::function<std::auto_ptr<A>()> > s_factory;

where A is your abstract base, and initialize s_factory with

s_factory[ "X" ] = boost::factory< std::auto_ptr<X> >();