c++ reference to function pointer dynamically - c++

Question

I have one application in which following task are to be done
1.) UI application will send command code (integer value).
2.) DLL interface(in c++) will get that integer value and execute corresponding command function.
commands name and command code are maintained as
#define PING 50
there will be 500 commands and applying SWITCH CASE will not sound good. so i decided to implement function pointer in my code as below
#include "stdafx.h"
#include<iostream>
#define PING 20
using namespace std;
//extern const int PING = 10;
void ping()
{
cout<<"ping command executed";
}
void get_status(void)
{
cout<<"Get_status called"<<endl;
}
class ToDoCommands
{
public:
void getCommand( void (*CommandToCall)() );
};
void ToDoCommands::getCommand( void (*CommandToCall)())
{
void (*CommandToCall1)();
CommandToCall1 = CommandToCall;
CommandToCall1();
}
int main()
{
int code;
ToDoCommands obj;
cout<<"enter command code";
cin>>code; // if UI send 50 then Ping function get executed as #define PING 50
obj.getCommand(ping); // here m passing ping manually..
//obj.getCommand(get_status);
return 0;
}
how can i pass command name corresponding to command code in
obj.getCommand(ping);

Answer 1

You are almost there: make a std::map of std::string to function pointer, initialize it with data pairing a string name to a corresponding function pointer, and then use that map at runtime to pick the correct pointer based on the string parameter passed in.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <map>
using namespace std;
void ping() {
cout << "ping" << endl;
}
void test() {
cout << "test" << endl;
}
int main() {
map<string,void(*)()> m;
m["ping"] = ping;
m["test"] = test;
// I am using hard-coded constants below.
// In your case, strings will come from command line args
m["test"]();
m["ping"]();
return 0;
}
Link to a demo with std::map.
Here is how you can do it without a map (it will be slower because of the linear search, but you can fix it by ordering names alphabetically and using binary search).
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
using namespace std;
void ping() {
cout << "ping" << endl;
}
void test() {
cout << "test" << endl;
}
typedef void (*fptr_t)();
int main() {
const fptr_t fptrs[] = {test, ping};
const char *names[] = {"test", "ping"};
const char *fname = "test";
for (int i = 0 ; i != 2 ; i++) {
if (!strcmp(fname, names[i])) {
fptrs[i]();
break;
}
}
return 0;
}
Link to a demo with arrays.

Answer 2

Declare an array of function pointers. Where you treat the index as your "code". For example:
void foo(){
printf("foo\n");
}
void bar(){
printf("bar\n");
}
int main(void)
{
void (*code_to_function[100])();
int code;
code_to_function[0] = foo;
code_to_function[1] = bar;
printf("Enter code: ");
scanf("%d", &code);
code_to_function[code]();
return 0;
}
Please note that for this rudimentary example, inputting integer code other than 0 and 1 will result in a segfault.

Answer 3

I should say #dasblinkenlight is right but if you don't want to use std::map you should implement a map yourself. This can be buggy and not a optimized way, but if you don't want to use STL, it seems you should implement it yourself.
You can use 2 arrays with corresponding indices. One of them is a char * array and another one is function pointers. They are better to be encapsulated in a class named something like MyMap.
class MyMap {
public:
...
inline void add(char *name, (void (*ptr)(void)) ) {
names_[currIndex_] = name; // Or stcpy
ptrs_[currIndex_] = ptr;
currIndex_++;
}
inline (void(*)(void)) get(char *name) {
int foundIndex = -1;
for (int i = 0; i < currIndex_; i++) {
// Find matching index
}
if (foundIndex_ >= 0) {
return ptrs_[foundIndex_];
}
return NULL;
}
private:
int currIndex_;
char *names_[10];
(void (*ptrs_[10])(void));
};