Examples in Event Dispatching

The Refinement

A more sophisticated example is presented in the next code excerpt:

namespace RelayGenerator2
{

   template <class R, template <class T> class D = Relay>
      struct RGBase
      {
         typedef D< typename R::RELAY > DISPATCHER;
         typedef Relay<DISPATCHER > RELAY;

            static RELAY getRelay()
            {
               return RELAY(DISPATCHER(R::getRelay()));
            }

      };
   template <class R >
      struct RGBase<R, Relay>
      {
         typedef R DISPATCHER;
         typedef Relay<DISPATCHER > RELAY;

         static RELAY getRelay()
         {
            return RELAY(R());
         }
      };

   template <int I>
      struct RG
      {
         typedef void DISPATCHER;
      };

   template <>
      struct RG<0> : RGBase<BasicLayerDispatcher>
      { };

   template <>
      struct RG<1> : RGBase<RG<0>, SecondLayerDispatcher >
         { };

   template <>
      struct RG<2> : RGBase< RG<1>, ThirdLayerDispatcher>
         {};

   template <int L, class E>
      void relay(const E& e)
      {
         RG<L>::getRelay().relay(e);
      }

   template <int I>
      struct IsValidRG
      {
         typedef char ONE;
         typedef struct {char a[2];} TWO;
         template <class C>
            static ONE isClass(...);
         template <class C>
            static TWO isClass(int C::*);
         enum E {
            e=sizeof(isClass<typename RG<I>::DISPATCHER>(0) )
               == 2 ? IsValidRG<I+1>::e : I-1
         };

      };

   template <>
      struct IsValidRG<200>
      {
         enum E {
            e
         };
      };

   template <class E>
      void broadcast(const E& e)
      {
         relay<IsValidRG<0>::e>(e);
}

void action()
{
}

The first observation is that RG was factored out using RGBase. The second and more important observation is that a broadcast method was implemented. As mentioned in Note 2, broadcast is automatically achieved by dispatching to the last Relay of the chain. A method of automatically finding the last specialization of a Relay (isValidRG) is based on the SFINAE (Substitution Failure Is Not An Error [2]) concept and the remark that RG::DISPATCHER is a class for all the cases when RG is a specialization and otherwise not.

Where You Are

I presented two multilayered Event Dispatching implementations, together with a design overview. Single- and multilayered designs were compared and their complementary was underlined. With minimal effort, the reader can either combine the two approaches or use one at a time only.

Download the Code

You can download the code that accompanies this article here.

References

1. Event Dispatching: One Size Doesn't Fit All: Part 1
2. C++ Templates: The Complete Guide.
   Nicolai M. Josuttis. Addison-Wesley, 2002