include/AIDA/IManagedObject.h

0001 // -*- C++ -*-
0002 // AID-GENERATED
0003 // =========================================================================
0004 // This class was generated by AID - Abstract Interface Definition
0005 // DO NOT MODIFY, but use the org.freehep.aid.Aid utility to regenerate it.
0006 // =========================================================================
0007 #ifndef AIDA_IMANAGEDOBJECT_H
0008 #define AIDA_IMANAGEDOBJECT_H 1
0009
0010 //  This file is part of the AIDA library
0011 //  Copyright (C) 2002 by the AIDA team.  All rights reserved.
0012 //  This library is free software and under the terms of the
0013 //  GNU Library General Public License described in the LGPL.txt
0014
0015 #include <string>
0016
0017 namespace AIDA {
0018
0019 /**
0020  * An object which can be stored in a tree.
0021  * @see ITree
0022  *
0023  * @author The AIDA team (http://aida.freehep.org/)
0024  *
0025  */
0026
0027 class IManagedObject {
0028
0029 public:
0030     /// Destructor.
0031     virtual ~IManagedObject() { /* nop */; }
0032
0033     /**
0034      * Get the name of an IManagedObject.
0035      * Names can only be changed using the ITree.mv().
0036      * @return The name of the IManagedObject.
0037      *
0038      */
0039     virtual std::string name() const = 0;
0040
0041     /**
0042      *  A simple introspection method.
0043      * It offers to implementations the possibility
0044      * to avoid the usage of the dynamic_cast. It appears
0045      * that this C++ feature is not yet reliable (May 2003)
0046      * in complex environments that intensivly use the dynamic loading.
0047      *  The signature of this method follows the qt_cast method found
0048      * in Qt (see the Q_OBJECT macro).
0049      *  Example of usage is :
0050      *      AIDA::IManagedObject* object = tree->find("myData");
0051      *      if(object) {
0052      *        AIDA::IHistogram* histo = object->cast("AIDA::IHistogram");
0053      *        if(histo) {
0054      *          // the object is an histo.
0055      *        }
0056      *      }
0057      * @param className The name of the class to cast on.
0058      * @return The right pointer. Return 0 if className is not in the
0059      * inheritance tree.
0060      */
0061     virtual void * cast(const std::string & className) const = 0;
0062 }; // class
0063 } // namespace AIDA
0064 #endif /* ifndef AIDA_IMANAGEDOBJECT_H */