NAME

       Creator  -  recreates  catalog-managed  objects from disk and instantiates component views
       from their class identifiers

SYNOPSIS

       #include <Unidraw/creator.h>

DESCRIPTION

       A creator object can reconstruct a catalog-managed object from disk and can instantiate  a
       component  view  given  a  class  identifier.   Generally  only the Catalog class uses the
       creator to reconstruct objects from disk, but it may be useful for  other  classes  (e.g.,
       the Component base class) to use the creator to create views of component subjects.

       Applications that derive new catalog-managed classes or component views must also derive a
       subclass of Creator that extends the base class operations to support the new classes.

PUBLIC OPERATIONS

       Creator()
              Instantiate an new creator object.  The Catalog constructor requires an instance of
              a creator object, either an instance of the Creator base class or an instance of an
              application-specific Creator subclass.

       virtual void* Create(
           ClassId, istream& in, ObjectMap* objmap, int objid
       )
              Create an instance of the  class  corresponding  to  the  given  class  identifier.
              Normally  this  operation  will  be  used  by  the Catalog class exclusively.  This
              operation contains a switch statement that calls a CREATE macro for  each  possible
              class identifier.  The CREATE macro takes the istream, ObjectMap, and int arguments
              as parameters; it  is  not  important  to  understand  how  the  macro  uses  these
              arguments.  For example, the entry for the LineComp line component subject class is

              case LINE_COMP: CREATE(LineComp, in, objmap, objid);

              Derived  Creator classes must redefine this operation to include a switch statement
              for application-specific classes, with the default case calling the parent  class's
              Create operation.

       virtual void* Create(ClassId id)
              Create  an  instance  of  the  view  class  corresponding  to  the given view class
              identifier.  This operation is implemented with a set of consecutive if  statements
              of the form

              if (id == <identifier name>) return new <class name>;

              For  example,  the entry for the PostScript external view class identifier for line
              components is

              if (id == PS_LINE) return new PSLine;

              Derived Creator classes must redefine this operation to include if  statements  for
              application-specific  view  classes,  with  the final statement being a call to the
              parent classes's Create operation.

SEE ALSO

       Catalog(3U), classes(3U), globals(3U)