[LC++] Logical/structural question about plugin systems
David Nugent
davidn at datalinktech.com.au
Tue Jun 12 00:44:55 UTC 2007
Julien Claassen wrote:
> I'm working on an I/O library. but there's a question. I plan to have input
> and output plugins, that can be loaded via at runtime via a user-config-file.
> But there needs to something like an exclusion clause built into the library,
> because some i-plugins can't work with o-plugins. How best to realise the
> exclusion matrix? I think it might be best to do it at a global level, because
> modules/plugins might be added and so we can easily keep track of it
In a situation like this, a little RTTI goes a long way and avoid a
situation that could be potentially quite messy to deal with. Let the
class hierarchy do all the work.
For example, you can derive a specific set of plugins from a common base
class based on feature compatibility. If an input plugin requires
certain features of the output plugin, then it could inspect the active
output plugin to determine if it has those features (based on it being
derived from a specific known output plugin subclass), and vice versa.
If you have, say, class INPlug and class OUTPlug as base classes, derive
INPlugA and INPlugB from INPlug representing different feature sets,
then your OUTPlugs can determine if a specific descendant of INPlug is
derived from INPlugA or is not derived from INPlugB, depending on how
you want to set up your rules. This approach loses none of the
flexibility you achieve by using an object oriented platform in the
first place and avoids hard wiring or other limitations. C++ at its best.
I'm not sure how and if this would translate to your specific situation,
but the idea may be worth exploring.
Regards
/d
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