Re: Declaring Java classes and methods

[furgalj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Joe Pluta wrote:

>I'm a little unclear as to how tightly typed the type O variables are.
>If I declare a type O variable as class Widget, must I instatiate an
>object of type Widget to stick in there?  Can I use a subclass of
>Widget?  Can I use a class that's NOT a subclass, provided the method I
>later invoke has the same signature?
>
>I can do this with a factory method.  I'd have to instatiate the
>factory, and then pass the class name into the factory as a parameter to
>instantiate the actual object (or have a delegate method in the factory
>that emulates the desired method, only taking a class name as well).  It
>would be a little easier if I could do it in the RPG, is all.

Joe, maybe I'm stating the obvious here, and you've already looked into 
this, but if not, it might be worth a try. I believe what you need is a 
custom class loader. You can write them yourself if you study how Java 
does it. This could be a static class and loader method, so that when you 
called it with the class.method variable name it would not have to be 
instantiated each time. You might even be able to do some of this in RPG, 
but I'm not at all sure about that. But I have seen and heard of people 
writing stranger class loaders than that -)! Also, as to your last point, 
can't you define interfaces for the classes and methods you're interested 
in ant invoke them via the interface method? By doing this you should be 
able to slip in almost anything as long as the signature matches.


_________________________________________________________________
Jeff Furgal / MIMIX User Interface Product Architect / Lakeview Technology

furgalj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx / 630-282-8360

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