Question

I am currently implementing a game and want to add a Network feature. (i.e. I want to be able to join and host my application/game). This seems a lot tougher than I first imagined. The purpose of this question is asking if there is a good general datastructure choice for these kind of implementations.

My main problem is that I currently have a lot of functions in my Game class that look like this:

f() { if (host) doSomething() else doSomethingCompletelyDifferent() }

Answer 1

You could use OOP. Alas, you do not provide which programming language you use.

For example, if you are programming in C, you could do

struct thefunctions {
    void (*stuff1)(void);
    void (*stuff2)(int);
    int (*get)(int);
};

struct thefunctions network {
    .stuff1 = doSomething;
}

struct thefunctions standalone {
    .stuff1 = doSomethingCompletelyDifferent;
}

struct thefunctions * funcs;

[...]

if (host) {
    funcs = &network;
} else {
    funcs = &standalone;
}

// now the structs are initialized. We can now use funcs->.

[...]

// If I am sure that stuff1 has been initialited properly, I can do
funcs->stuff1();

// If not, I should check first
if (funcs->stuff1) funcs->stuff1();

// or
assert(funcs->stuff1);
funcs->stuff1();