Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with C++ (Second Edition) - Second Edition

By : Fedor G. Pikus
5 (1)
Book Image

Hands-On Design Patterns with C++ (Second Edition) - Second Edition

5 (1)
By: Fedor G. Pikus

Overview of this book

C++ is a general-purpose programming language designed for efficiency, performance, and flexibility. Design patterns are commonly accepted solutions to well-recognized design problems. In essence, they are a library of reusable components, only for software architecture, and not for a concrete implementation. This book helps you focus on the design patterns that naturally adapt to your needs, and on the patterns that uniquely benefit from the features of C++. Armed with the knowledge of these patterns, you’ll spend less time searching for solutions to common problems and tackle challenges with the solutions developed from experience. You’ll also explore that design patterns are a concise and efficient way to communicate, as patterns are a familiar and recognizable solution to a specific problem and can convey a considerable amount of information with a single line of code. By the end of this book, you’ll have a deep understanding of how to use design patterns to write maintainable, robust, and reusable software.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Part 1: Getting Started with C++ Features and Concepts
5
Part 2: Common C++ Idioms
10
Part 3: C++ Design Patterns
18
Part 4: Advanced C++ Design Patterns

The Non-Virtual Interface

The implementation of the dynamically customizable parts of the templated algorithm is usually done with virtual functions. For a general Template Method pattern, this is not a requirement, but in C++, we rarely need another way. Now, we are going to focus specifically on using the virtual functions and improving on what we have learned.

Virtual functions and access

Let’s start with a general question—should virtual functions be public or private? The textbook object-oriented design style uses public virtual functions, so we often make them public without a second thought. Within the Template Method, this practice needs to be reevaluated—a public function is part of the class interface. In our case, the class interface includes the entire algorithm, and the framework we put in place in the base class. This function should be public, but it is also non-virtual. The customized implementations of some parts of the algorithm were never...