Const Static variables set at run time and a design question.
Jim
I've a set of data which has two spectra associated with each
position. For each spectra you convert from an array position to a
real value using an array offset, a delta and a velocity offset.
These are common to all spectra of the same type and don't change
through the program's run. Unfortunately I don't know them until I
load the file, unless I hard code them and I don't want to do that.
Only solution I can think of is to have a user-defined object called
conversion which has const members set in the constructor and const
accessor methods and have a static object in each type of the specific
spectra classes which inherit from the spectra base class. Does this
seem correct?
Thanks,
Jim
Marcel Müller
Jim wrote:
> I've a set of data which has two spectra associated with each
> position. For each spectra you convert from an array position to a
> real value using an array offset, a delta and a velocity offset.
> These are common to all spectra of the same type and don't change
> through the program's run. Unfortunately I don't know them until I
> load the file, unless I hard code them and I don't want to do that.
so they are NOT const static because they change while the application runs.
> Only solution I can think of is to have a user-defined object called
> conversion which has const members set in the constructor and const
> accessor methods and have a static object in each type of the specific
> spectra classes which inherit from the spectra base class. Does this
> seem correct?
Something like that is possible. But I would keep conversion as simple
as possible:
struct conversion
{ double offset;
double whatever;
};
class SpectraBase
{
public virtual const conversion& GetConversion() const = 0;
...
};
Marcel
Victor Bazarov
It doesn't seem /in/correct. Do you see any issue with the solution?
If you have to have a const member, the constructor is the only place to
initialize it. You *could* make it 'mutable' and have a special member
function that would change it, but IME 'mutable' is dangerous because it
breeds temptation to change the member more often than needed.
V
--
Please remove capital 'A's when replying by e-mail
I do not respond to top-posted replies, please don't ask
Jim
Seems an interesting problem, I'd have thought there would be lots of
occasions where there are values common to all objects of a class
which need to remain const, but aren't known until run time. Storing
three values common to each one of 40,000 spectra seems wasteful. I
was really wondering if there was an equivalent to the following code
but at a class level. It's probably a design issue? In the example m_n
is const, but not known until the object is constructed.
class A
{
const int m_n;
public:
A();
int get() const;
};
A::A( int n ) : m_n( n )
{
}
Victor Bazarov
Really? 40 thousand pairs of what, 4-byte numbers? That's 320K.
Wasteful? Maybe. But do you really need to concern yourself with
"wasting" 320K in a modern computer with at least 1 gig of RAM?
> I
> was really wondering if there was an equivalent to the following code
> but at a class level. It's probably a design issue? In the example m_n
> is const, but not known until the object is constructed.
>
> class A
> {
> const int m_n;
> public:
> A();
> int get() const;
> };
> A::A( int n ) : m_n( n )
> {
> }
Uh... I don't understand what is holding you from using a pointer to an
object of type 'A' as a static member of another class?
class Spectrum123
{
static A* m_pA;
Spectrum123(std::istream &is); // acquisition from a file
};
Spectrum123::Spectrum123(std::istream &is)
{
... // do what's needed to get the spectrum read
if (!m_pA)
{
int someValue = ... // calculate from the spectrum
m_pA = new A(someValue);
James Kanze
If the data can be made available before entering main, there's
no problem; something like:
int configuration = getIntFromEnvironment( "CONFIGVARNAME" ) ;
works fine. If you have to read the value from a file (whose
name is passed in argv, for example), then it's more difficult.
Perhaps something along the lines of:
ConfigurationData const* configData ;
would do the trick, with configData being set each time after
reading the values.
--
James Kanze