class from string

[RedUnderTheBed]

Hey,

So let's not get into the potential ridiculousness of what I'm doing. But essentially I have a string that is the name of a class, I want it to create a new object of that type.

So if I pass it a string "ClassyFace", it'll create a new ClassyFace object, if the string is "ClassyPants", I want it to make a ClassyPants object. I realise I can achieve this with a bunch of if statements but I'd like to have it go directly from the string. Also, if it helps, all of these objects share a base class.

Any help is appreciated.

[laserlight]

Personally, I would just go with an if else chain. C++ does not have a reflection feature, at least not natively.

[cilu]

Yes, make a factory class/method that creates the objects base on the name of the class given as string.

[RedUnderTheBed]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Silly C++. Not being java :P

[JVene]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Silly C++. Not being java :P

Are you hear to publish points of disagreement? If you know and like Java, why are you trying your hand at C++?

French isn't silly because it's not German, or English. C++ wasn't created to satisfy the interests of Java developers, it usually serves rather different purposes, though there can be considerable overlap.

There's a book from Alexandrescu on the subject of metaprogramming (typelists specifically in this case) which can be used to create a simple template function which could do what you ask.