When implementing policies, one needs to follow a specific interface. From what I understand the policies have to be able to replace each other. In modern c++ book, Ch 1.5 3 policies have the same interface "T* Create() {}". Why is there no need to abstract it. It would be important if there are number of interfaces that policies should have. from I understand abstract class gives a recipe for which interfaces should be in concrete classes (the policy classes). In the Wikipedia example "using" defines which interfaces the policy should have but it's not through an abstract class. Isn't the point of abstract class to make sure that derived classes have the required interfaces?
what am I missing?
There is a difference in that an interface using an abstract base class has virtual functions providing runtime polymorphism.
The policies are used to provide compile time polymorphism for the templates. The compiler will notice if your policy class has a T* Create() or not. If it doesn't, you will get a compile time error when trying to use it.
I've never actually used policy-based design in practice and it's ages since I coded in C++, but here's my interpretation. As you've pointed out, the host class can enforce constraints on the policies used with it, either through interfaces, or through something like using output_policy::Print;, as the wiki example depicts.
An advantage (or difference) of the using method is that it's less proactively restrictive and less rigid, as policies have an implied contract which is represented directly by the code which uses them. In the using example, given the current state of the code, the output_policy implementation need only implement a method called Print which returns anything and takes whatever language_policy::Message() returns (in this case, all language_policies return a std::string). This is a little closer to duck typing.
One disadvantage is that the implied contract disappears once the code goes away. Another disadvantage is that policies have some level of dependency on each other. As a very contrived example, if one output_policy has a non-generic Print method which prints only strings, it cannot be used with a language_policy which prints only integers.
I don't see why you can't add policy interfaces if needed. One example is where the HelloWorld class might want to constrain the output_policy so that it prints strings and nothing else. You could achieve this by coding something like the below - note that you'd have to use SFINAE to enforce that output_policy<std::string> actually implements OutputPolicyInterface<std::string>.
template<typename message_type>
class OutputPolicyInterface
{
virtual void Print( message_type message ) = 0;
};
template <template<class> class output_policy, typename language_policy>
class HelloWorld : public output_policy<std::string>, public language_policy
{
public:
void Run()
{
Print( Message() );
//Print(2); won't work anymore
}
};
Related
This is a narrower version of the question put on hold due to being too broad.
On pages 6-7 of Modern C++ Design, Andrei Alexandrescu lists three ways in which the multiple inheritance is weaker than templates with respect to building flexible designs. In particular, he states that the mechanics provided by multiple inheritance is poor (the text in square brackets and formatting are mine as per my understanding of the context):
In such a setting [i.e. multiple inheritance], [to build a flexible SmartPtr,] the user would build a multithreaded, reference-counted smart pointer class by inheriting some BaseSmartPtr class and two classes: MultiThreaded and RefCounted. Any experienced class designer knows
that such a naïve design does not work.
...
Mechanics. There is no boilerplate code to assemble the inherited components in a controlled
manner. The only tool that combines BaseSmartPtr, MultiThreaded, and RefCounted
is a language mechanism called multiple inheritance. The language applies
simple superposition in combining the base classes and establishes a set of simple rules
for accessing their members. This is unacceptable except for the simplest cases. Most
of the time, you need to orchestrate the workings of the inherited classes carefully to
obtain the desired behavior.
When using multiple inheritance, one can achieve some pretty flexible orchestration by writing member functions that call member functions of several base classes. So, what is the orchestration that is missing from multiple inheritance and present in templates?
Please note that not every disadvantage of multiple inheritance compared to templates goes as an answer here, but only a disadvantage in what Andei calls mechanics in the above quote. In particular, please make sure that you are not talking about one of the other two weaknesses of multiple inheritance listed by Andrei:
Type information. The base classes do not have enough type information to carry on
their tasks. For example, imagine you try to implement deep copy for your smart
pointer class by deriving from a DeepCopy base class. But what interface would DeepCopy
have? It must create objects of a type it doesn’t know yet.
State manipulation. Various behavioral aspects implemented with base classes must manipulate
the same state. This means that they must use virtual inheritance to inherit a
base class that holds the state. This complicates the design and makes it more rigid because
the premise was that user classes inherit library classes, not vice versa.
I think that what Alexandrescu is referring to in the "Mechanics" paragraph is expounded upon in the rest of the chapter. He's referring to how much more flexible policy-based class design is than inheritance-based class design, particularly with respect to the various ways in which policies can be implemented and combined - this in comparison to the single implementation and combination allowed through multiple inheritance.
For instance, when discussing the Creator policy he points out that the policy requires only a Create() method that returns a pointer to the class being created, but doesn't specify that it be virtual or non-static. And he shows several ways in which each policy could be created: a straightforward policy class such as (from section 1.5, skipping the MallocCreator and PrototypeCreator policies)
template<class T>
struct OpNewCreator
{
static T* Create()
{
return new T;
}
};
...
> //Library code
> template <class CreationPolicy>
> class WidgetManager:public CreationPolicy
> {
> ...
> };
...
// Application Code
typedef WidgetManager<OpNewCreator<Widget> > MyWidgetMgr;
or it could be implemented with template template parameters (section 1.5.1) as
//Library Code
template <template <class> class Creation Policy>
class WidgetManager : public CreationPolicy <Widget>
{
...
}
// Application Code
typedef WidgetManager<OpNewCreator> MyWidgetMgr
or (section 1.5.2) - implemented as a template member function:
struct OpNewCreator
{
template <class T>
static T* Create()
{
return new T;
}
}
These are examples of the flexible mechanics that are available in a template-based policy class solution and not available in a multiple inheritance solution. These particular examples are not maybe all that exciting, probably because they have to be short and simple for pedagogical reasons.
I am trying to understand the real requirement of the usage of templates for policy based design. Going through the new templated designs in C++ I found that policy based class design is a highly suggested way of design which allows you to 'plug-in' different behaviors from policy classes. A minimal example is the following (a shortened version of the wiki):
template <typename LanguagePolicy>
class HelloWorld : private LanguagePolicy
{
using LanguagePolicy::message;
public:
// Behaviour method
void run() const
{
// policy methods
cout << message();
}
};
class LanguagePolicyA
{
protected:
std::string message() const
{
return "Hello, World!";
}
};
//usage
HelloWorld<LanguagePolicyA> hello_worlda;
hello_worlda.run(); // prints "Hello, World!"
A quick analysis shows that just to get different plugable methods message() we are inheriting from a templated type whose definition can be provided by anyone (and identified at compile time).
But the same level of abstraction (and configurable methods) can be achieved without using a templated code and by the simple old school run time polymorphism as shown below.
class HelloWorld
{
LanguagePolicy *lp; //list of all plugable class
public:
HelloWorld(LanguagePolicy *lpn) {
lp = lpn;
}
// Behaviour method
void run() const
{
// policy methods
cout << lp->message();
}
};
class LanguagePolicy
{
protected:
virtual std::string message() const;
};
class LanguagePolicyA: LanguagePolicy
{
protected:
std::string message() const
{
return "Hello, World!";
}
};
//usage
HelloWorld helloworld(new LanguagePolicyA);
helloworld.run();
Functionality and level of abstraction wise I don't see much of a difference in the two approach (even though the second approach has few extra lines of code for LanguagePolicy, I think it is needed for the other users to know the interface; otherwise understanding LanguagePolicy depends upon the documentation). But I do think the later to be 'clean' (coming from someone who has not used template much). This is because personally in my opinion non-templated classes are cleaner to look at and understand. An extremely good example is the popular library VTK (Visualization Tool Kit) which solves many different problems using the second approach. Even though there are not extensive documentations of VTK, most of us - its users, can just have a look into its class diagrams (sometimes they are quite big) and deduce behaviors of classes; and develop highly configurable and complicated pipelines in our application (can't imaging VTK to be template based :)). The opposite is libraries like STL/BOOST which I don't think is possible for anyone to be able to identify the working of the classes without the use of extensive documentation.
So my question is, is the template based policy design really superior (only in this scenario of policy based design) than virtual inheritance based? If so, when and why?
Both are valid ways of structuring, it actually depends on the requirements. E.g.
Runtime vs compile time polymorphism.
When do you want/can/have to achieve polymorphism ?
Performance overhead of virtual calls
Templates generate code that has no indirections
The actual usage of the class.
When you have to store heterogenous collections, a base class is needed, so you have to use inheritance.
A very good book on policy-based design (a bit dated but good nevertheless) is Modern C++ Design
Depends on the situation I guess... A possible downside of using templates is that the type should be known at compile-time:
HelloWorld<English> hw; // English is plugged at compile-time
In your second example, where you're using a pointer-to-base, this pointer might point to a variety of derived classes. What exactly it points to is not required to be known at compile-time and can therefore be determined by (user-)input at runtime. A possible down-side of this approach is virtual call overhead. In some applications, and on some platforms, this might be unwanted.
I'm trying to program a genetic algorithm for a project and am having difficulty keeping different functions separate. I've been reading up on policy-based design, and this seems like a solution to the problem, but I don't really understand how to implement it.
I've got an OptimizerHost, which inherits from a SelectionPolicy (to determine what solutions are evaluated) and a FitnessPolicy (to determine the fitness of any given solution). The problem is I can't figure out how the two policies can communicate with one another. The bulk of the algorithm is implemented in the SelectionPolicy, but it still needs to be able to check the fitness of its solutions. The only thing I can think of is to implement the SelectionPolicy algorithm in the OptimizerHost itself, so then it will inherit the things it needs from the FitnessPolicy. But that seems like its missing the point of using policies in the first place. Am I misunderstanding something?
I'm not very familiar with the Policy-Based design principles (sorry) but when I read your problem, I felt like you need something like pure virtual classes (as interfaces) to help you through it.
The thing is, you cannot use something from the other, if it's not previously declared: this is the basic rule. Thus, you need to use and virtual interface to say SelectPolicy that FitnessPolicy has some members to be used. Please follow the example, and change it accordingly to your algortihms-needs.
First: create the interfaces for the SelectionPolicy and the FitnessPolicy
template <class T> class FitnessPolicyBase
{
public:
virtual int Fitness(T fitnessSet); // assuming you have implemented the required classes etc. here - return value can be different of course
...
} // write your other FitnessPolicy stuff here
template <class T> class SelectionPolicyBase
{
public:
virtual T Selector(FitnessPolicyBase<Solution> evaluator, Set<T> selectionSet); // assuming such a set exists here
...
} // write your other selectionpolicy interface here
Now, since we made these classes pure virtual (they have nothing but virtual functions) we cannot use them but only inherit from them. This is precisely what we'll do: The SelectionPolicy class and the FitnessPolicy class will be inheriting from them, respectively:
class SelectionPolicy: public SelectionPolicyBase<Solution> // say, our solutions are of Solution Type...
{
public:
virtual Solution Selector(FitnessPolicyBase<Solution> evaluator, Set<Solution> selectionSet); // return your selected item in this function
...
}
class FitnessPolicy : public FitnessPolicy Base<Solution> // say, our solutions are of SolutionSet Type...
{
public:
virtual int Fitness(Solution set); // return the fitness score here
...
}
Now, our algortihm can run with two types of parameters: SolutionSetBase and FitnessSetBase. Did we really need the xxxBase types at all? Not actually, as long as we have the public interfaces of the SolutionPolicy and FitnessPolicy classes, we could use them; but using this way, we kinda seperated the `logic' from the problem.
Now, our Selection Policy algorithm can take references to the policy classes and then call the required function. Note here that, policy classes can call each others' classes as well. So this is a valid situation now:
virtual Solution SelectionPolicy::Selector(FitnessPolicyBase<Solution> evaluator, Set<T> selectionSet)
{
int score = evaluator.Fitness(selectionSet[0]); //assuming an array type indexing here. Change accordingly to your implementation and comparisons etc.
}
Now, in order for this to work, though, you must have initialized a FitnessPolicy object and pass it to this Selector. Due to upcasting and virtual functions, it will work properly.
Please forgive me if I've been overcomplicating things - I've been kinda afar from C++ lately (working on C# recently) thus might have mistaken the syntax an stuff, but logic should be the same anyway.
I think I understand the difference between interface and abstract. Abstract sets default behavior and in cases of pure abstract, behavior needs to be set by derived class. Interface is a take what you need without the overhead from a base class. So what is the advantage of interface over composition? The only advantage I can think is use of protected fields in the base class. What am I missing?
Your title does not make sense, and your explanations are a bit blurry, so let's define the terms (and introduce the key missing one).
There are two different things going on here:
Abstract Class vs Interface
Inheritance vs Composition
Let us start with Interfaces and Abstract Classes.
An Abstract Class (in C++) is a class which cannot be instantiated because at least one its method is a pure virtual method.
An Interface, in Java-like languages, is a set of methods with no implementation, in C++ it is emulated with Abstract Classes with only pure virtual methods.
So, in the context of C++, there is not much difference between either. Especially because the distinction never took into account free-functions.
For example, consider the following "interface":
class LessThanComparable {
public:
virtual ~LessThanComparable() {}
virtual bool less(LessThanComparable const& other) const = 0;
};
You can trivially augment it, even with free functions:
inline bool operator<(LessThanComparable const& left, LessThanComparable const& right) {
return left.less(right);
}
inline bool operator>(LessThanComparable const& left, LessThanComparable const& right) {
return right.less(left);
}
inline bool operator<=(LessThanComparable const& left, LessThanComparable const& right) {
return not right.less(left);
}
inline bool operator>=(LessThanComparable const& left, LessThanComparable const& right) {
return not left.less(right);
}
In this case, we provide behavior... yet the class itself is still an interface... oh well.
The real debate, therefore, is between Inheritance and Composition.
Inheritance is often misused to inherit behavior. This is bad. Inheritance should be used to model a is-a relationship. Otherwise, you probably want Composition.
Consider the simple use case:
class DieselEngine { public: void start(); };
Now, how do we build a Car with this ?
If you inherit, it will work. However, suddenly you get such code:
void start(DieselEngine& e) { e.start(); }
int main() {
Car car;
start(car);
}
Now, if you decide to replace DieselEngine with WaterEngine, the above function does not work. Compilation fails. And having WaterEngine inherit from DieselEngine certainly feels ikky...
What is the solution then ? Composition.
class Car {
public:
void start() { engine.start(); }
private:
DieselEngine engine;
};
This way, noone can write nonsensical code that assumes that a car is an engine (doh!). And therefore, changing the engine is easy with absolutely no customer impact.
This means that there is less adherence between your implementation and the code that uses it; or as it is usually referred to: less coupling.
The rule of thumb is that in general, inheriting from a class which has data or implement behavior should be frown upon. It can be legitimate, but there are often better ways. Of course, like all rule of thumb, it is to be taken with a grain of salt; be careful of overengineering.
An interface defines how you will be used.
You inherit in order to be reused. This means you want to fit into some framework. If you don't need to fit into a framework, even one of your own making, don't inherit.
Composition is an implementation detail. Don't inherit in order to get the implementation of the base class, compose it. Only inherit if it allows you to fit into a framework.
An interface defines behaviour. An abstract class helps to implement behaviour.
In theory there is not a lot of difference between a pure abstract class with no implementation at all, and an interface. Both define an unimplemented API. However, pure abstract classes are often used in languages that don't support interfaces to provide interface like semantics (eg C++).
When you have the choice, generally an abstract base will provide some level of functionality, even if it's not complete. It helps implementation of common behaviour. The downside being you are forced to derive from it. When you are simply defining usage, use an interface. (There's nothing stopping you creating an abstract base that implements an interface).
Interfaces are thin, in C++ they can be described as classes with only pure virtual functions. Thin is good because
it reduces the learning curve in using or implementing the interface
it reduces the coupling (dependency) between the user and the implementor of the interface. Therefore, the user is really well insulated from changes in the implementation of the interface that they are using.
This, in conjunction with dynamic library linking, helps facilitate plug and play, one of the unsung but great software innovations of recent times. This leads to greater software interoperability, extensibility etc.
Interfaces can be more work to put in place. Justify their adoption when you have an important subsystem that could have more than one possible implementation, some day. The subsystem should in that case be used through an interface.
Reuse by means of inheiritance requires more knowlegde of the behaviour of the implementation you are overriding so there is greater "coupling". That said it is also a valid approach in cases where interfaces are overkill.
If type Y inherits from type X, then code which knows how to deal with objects of type X will, in most cases, automatically be able to deal with objects of type Y. Likewise, if type Z implements interface I, then code which knows how to use objects about which implement I, without having to know anything about them, will automatically be able to use objects of type Z. The primary purpose of inheritance and interfaces is to allow such substitutions.
By contrast, if object of type P contains an object of type Q, code which expects to work with an object of type Q will not be able to work on one of type P (unless P inherits from Q in addition to holding an object of that type). Code that expects to manipulate an object of type Q will be able to operate on the Q instance contained within P, but only if the code for P explicitly either supplies it to that code directly, or makes it available to outside code which does so.
If I want to make a class adaptable, and make it possible to select different algorithms from the outside -- what is the best implementation in C++?
I see mainly two possibilities:
Use an abstract base class and pass concrete object in
Use a template
Here is a little example, implemented in the various versions:
Version 1: Abstract base class
class Brake {
public: virtual void stopCar() = 0;
};
class BrakeWithABS : public Brake {
public: void stopCar() { ... }
};
class Car {
Brake* _brake;
public:
Car(Brake* brake) : _brake(brake) { brake->stopCar(); }
};
Version 2a: Template
template<class Brake>
class Car {
Brake brake;
public:
Car(){ brake.stopCar(); }
};
Version 2b: Template and private inheritance
template<class Brake>
class Car : private Brake {
using Brake::stopCar;
public:
Car(){ stopCar(); }
};
Coming from Java, I am naturally inclined to always use version 1, but the templates versions seem to be preferred often, e.g. in STL code? If that's true, is it just because of memory efficiency etc (no inheritance, no virtual function calls)?
I realize there is not a big difference between version 2a and 2b, see C++ FAQ.
Can you comment on these possibilities?
This depends on your goals. You can use version 1 if you
Intend to replace brakes of a car (at runtime)
Intend to pass Car around to non-template functions
I would generally prefer version 1 using the runtime polymorphism, because it is still flexible and allows you to have the Car still have the same type: Car<Opel> is another type than Car<Nissan>. If your goals are great performance while using the brakes frequently, i recommend you to use the templated approach. By the way, this is called policy based design. You provide a brake policy. Example because you said you programmed in Java, possibly you are not yet too experienced with C++. One way of doing it:
template<typename Accelerator, typename Brakes>
class Car {
Accelerator accelerator;
Brakes brakes;
public:
void brake() {
brakes.brake();
}
}
If you have lots of policies you can group them together into their own struct, and pass that one, for example as a SpeedConfiguration collecting Accelerator, Brakes and some more. In my projects i try to keep a good deal of code template-free, allowing them to be compiled once into their own object files, without needing their code in headers, but still allowing polymorphism (via virtual functions). For example, you might want to keep common data and functions that non-template code will probably call on many occasions in a base-class:
class VehicleBase {
protected:
std::string model;
std::string manufacturer;
// ...
public:
~VehicleBase() { }
virtual bool checkHealth() = 0;
};
template<typename Accelerator, typename Breaks>
class Car : public VehicleBase {
Accelerator accelerator;
Breaks breaks;
// ...
virtual bool checkHealth() { ... }
};
Incidentally, that is also the approach that C++ streams use: std::ios_base contains flags and stuff that do not depend on the char type or traits like openmode, format flags and stuff, while std::basic_ios then is a class template that inherits it. This also reduces code bloat by sharing the code that is common to all instantiations of a class template.
Private Inheritance?
Private inheritance should be avoided in general. It is only very rarely useful and containment is a better idea in most cases. Common case where the opposite is true when size is really crucial (policy based string class, for example): Empty Base Class Optimization can apply when deriving from an empty policy class (just containing functions).
Read Uses and abuses of Inheritance by Herb Sutter.
The rule of thumb is:
1) If the choice of the concrete type is made at compile time, prefer a template. It will be safer (compile time errors vs run time errors) and probably better optimized.
2) If the choice is made at run-time (i.e. as a result of a user's action) there is really no choice - use inheritance and virtual functions.
Other options:
Use the Visitor Pattern (let external code work on your class).
Externalize some part of your class, for example via iterators, that generic iterator-based code can work on them. This works best if your object is a container of other objects.
See also the Strategy Pattern (there are c++ examples inside)
Templates are a way to let a class use a variable of which you don't really care about the type. Inheritance is a way to define what a class is based on its attributes. Its the "is-a" versus "has-a" question.
Most of your question has already been answered, but I wanted to elaborate on this bit:
Coming from Java, I am naturally
inclined to always use version 1, but
the templates versions seem to be
preferred often, e.g. in STL code? If
that's true, is it just because of
memory efficiency etc (no inheritance,
no virtual function calls)?
That's part of it. But another factor is the added type safety. When you treat a BrakeWithABS as a Brake, you lose type information. You no longer know that the object is actually a BrakeWithABS. If it is a template parameter, you have the exact type available, which in some cases may enable the compiler to perform better typechecking. Or it may be useful in ensuring that the correct overload of a function gets called. (if stopCar() passes the Brake object to a second function, which may have a separate overload for BrakeWithABS, that won't be called if you'd used inheritance, and your BrakeWithABS had been cast to a Brake.
Another factor is that it allows more flexibility. Why do all Brake implementations have to inherit from the same base class? Does the base class actually have anything to bring to the table? If I write a class which exposes the expected member functions, isn't that good enough to act as a brake? Often, explicitly using interfaces or abstract base classes constrain your code more than necessary.
(Note, I'm not saying templates should always be the preferred solution. There are other concerns that might affect this, ranging from compilation speed to "what programmers on my team are familiar with" or just "what I prefer". And sometimes, you need runtime polymorphism, in which case the template solution simply isn't possible)
this answer is more or less correct. When you want something parametrized at compile time - you should prefer templates. When you want something parametrized at runtime, you should prefer virtual functions being overridden.
However, using templates does not preclude you from doing both (making the template version more flexible):
struct Brake {
virtual void stopCar() = 0;
};
struct BrakeChooser {
BrakeChooser(Brake *brake) : brake(brake) {}
void stopCar() { brake->stopCar(); }
Brake *brake;
};
template<class Brake>
struct Car
{
Car(Brake brake = Brake()) : brake(brake) {}
void slamTheBrakePedal() { brake.stopCar(); }
Brake brake;
};
// instantiation
Car<BrakeChooser> car(BrakeChooser(new AntiLockBrakes()));
That being said, I would probably NOT use templates for this... But its really just personal taste.
Abstract base class has on overhead of virtual calls but it has an advantage that all derived classes are really base classes. Not so when you use templates – Car<Brake> and Car<BrakeWithABS> are unrelated to each other and you'll have to either dynamic_cast and check for null or have templates for all the code that deals with Car.
Use interface if you suppose to support different Break classes and its hierarchy at once.
Car( new Brake() )
Car( new BrakeABC() )
Car( new CoolBrake() )
And you don't know this information at compile time.
If you know which Break you are going to use 2b is right choice for you to specify different Car classes. Brake in this case will be your car "Strategy" and you can set default one.
I wouldn't use 2a. Instead you can add static methods to Break and call them without instance.
Personally I would allways prefer to use Interfaces over templates because of several reasons:
Templates Compiling&linking errors are sometimes cryptic
It is hard to debug a code that based on templates (at least in visual studio IDE)
Templates can make your binaries bigger.
Templates require you to put all its code in the header file , that makes the template class a bit harder to understand.
Templates are hard to maintained by novice programmers.
I Only use templates when the virtual tables create some kind of overhead.
Ofcourse , this is only my self opinion.