Class Factory (Implementation Details)

Requirements

The Class Factory should Allow/Support:

• Construction of objects by unique identifier (name of the object)
• Pass arbitrary parameter and parameter types to object constructor
• Construction of objects with the help of a static class factory function
• Construction of a "Type Copy" of an object instance
• Object should have the ability to construct its child classes
• Get a list of implemented child classes for a specific class type
• Two way object registration:
  • register objects with static register macro (object are known if library is loaded)
  • register objects with the help of class files (library is only loaded if necessary)
• Limited class reflection:
  • Object knows its identifier/name (identifier includes the namespace of the object while the name is namespace free (and therefore the name is not necessarily unique))
  • Object knows its id (number) (id number is only valid during runtime)
  • Object knows its child classes
  • Object can determine if it is of abstract type

Preconditions

To enable the class factory to construct a object the following preconditions have to be fulfilled:

• The desired class is derived from the Object class
• The class is registered at the factory using one of the two possible registration methods