Question

I have a class myclass that has a private member param_map

class some_class {

 private:
  std::map<std::string,std::shared_ptr<parameter> > param_map;
};

I want to expose this map to allow other classes, I have already created add, delete, get parameter methods, which do, what you think. But I would like to expose this so other classes can traverse the map.

Q1: What would be the safest way to do this.

parameter also has a member value that I want to be either int/float/bool so one option would be to define it using templates

template<class T>
class parameter {
  public:
   T get_value { return value_; }

  private:
   T value_;
}

Q2: But how would I store this type in the map? And how would it change the definition of param_map. Also I would consider non template solutions (But I would prefer just one map)

PS: I would rather avoid using boost, I prefer to use the c++x0 std lib, but if boost is the best option then I will consider that. It would be good if you could post code examples also.

Regards

Mark

Answer 1

Q1: You can expose an iterator that iterates over the map, just like std::map does.

Q2: You can use 3 different maps, or use boost::any to store the value. If you want to avoid boost, you can store void* in place of boost::any (but I would usually not go the void* way — I would rather use the required parts of boost).