Question

I have a class called Device that accepts two policies as far as I can see: StatePolicy and BehaviorPolicy.
The StatePolicy holds and manages the state of the device.
The BehaviorPolicy wraps the device driver that is written in C or C++.
Now I have two questions:

1. How to coordinate between the state and the behavior policies?
2. How do I store all the devices inside one container? Since Device<X, Y>’s type is different then Device<N, M> I cannot store them with one container.

EDIT 1:
Here’s some code to illustrate my problem:

class AbstractDevice
{
public:
  virtual ~AbstractDevice() {}

  virtual void performAction() = 0;
  virtual const string &getName() const = 0;
  //virtual void changeState(const ??? &_state) = 0;  If I put a template here it won't solve my problem
};

template<typename T>
class State
{
private:
  T state;
protected:
  typedef T StateType;
public:
  State() : state(1) {}

  const T &getState() { return state; }
  void setState(const T _state) { state = _state; }
};

template <class StatePolicy>
class LightbulbBehvior : protected StatePolicy
{
private:
  typedef StatePolicy SP;
public:
  virtual void performAction()
  {
    if ( SP::getState() )
      cout << "do stuff";
  }

  void changeState(const typename SP::StateType &_state)
  {
    setState(_state);
    performAction();
  }
};

template<class StatePolicy, template <class> class BehviorPolicy>
class Device : public AbstractDevice, public BehviorPolicy<StatePolicy>
{
private:
  string sName;
public:
  const string &getName() const { return sName; }
};

int main()
{
  AbstractDevice *d = new Device<State<int>, LightbulbBehvior>();
  d->changeState(5);
  return 0;
}

EDIT 2:
This makes the code works with one downside, I have to maintain a list of all allowed state types. It looks a bit like the visitor pattern to me.
Any thoughts?

class AbstractDevice
{
public:
  virtual ~AbstractDevice() {}

  virtual void performAction() = 0;
  virtual const string &getName() const = 0;
  virtual void changeState(const int &_state) = 0;
};

Thanks in advance,
Omer.

Answer 1

Here is the full design that works and does it’s job pretty well at it:

class AbstractState
{
public:
  virtual ~AbstractState() {}
};

class AbstractDevice
{
public:
  virtual ~AbstractDevice() {}

  virtual void performAction() = 0;
  virtual const string &getName() const = 0;
  virtual void changeState(const AbstractState &_state) = 0;
};

template<typename T>
class State : public AbstractState
{
private:
  T state;
protected:
  typedef T StateType;
public:
  State() {}
  State(const T _state) : state(_state) {}

  const T &getState() const { return state; }
  void setState(const T _state) { state = _state; }
};

template <class StatePolicy>
class LightbulbBehvior : protected StatePolicy
{
private:
  typedef StatePolicy SP;
public:
  virtual void performAction()
  {
    if ( SP::getState() )
      cout << "do stuff";
  }

  void changeState(const typename SP::StateType &_state)
  {
    setState(_state);
    performAction();
  }
};

template<class StatePolicy, template <class> class BehviorPolicy>
class Device : public AbstractDevice, public BehviorPolicy<StatePolicy>
{
private:
  string sName;

  typedef BehviorPolicy<StatePolicy> BP;
  typedef StatePolicy SP;
public:
  const string &getName() const { return sName; }

  void performAction()
  {
    BP::performAction();
  }

  void changeState(const AbstractState &_state)
  {
    BP::changeState(((const SP &)_state).getState());
  }
};

int main()
{
  AbstractDevice *d = new Device<State<int>, LightbulbBehvior>();
  d->changeState(State<int>(5));
  delete d;
  return 0;
}

@cjhuitt: Generally I think you are right but take a look and tell me what do you think.