Class public members alternatives..

[Danielc]

Hi everybody!

I just registered here but I have been reading some articles in this page and the whole Internet.

I'm rewriting an application using C++/Qt and, although my application is working fine, I don't think i'm using a good method.

If it helps, it is an open source project with a page in Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/yalb/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2F%20yalbgameeditor

Because my project has three applications, I use a polymorphic class (StructManager) to provide generic methods for adding, removing and updating my own structs. For the first of the three applications, I created a second class (StructEditor) that inherits from StructManager and overrides its methods so they perform additional actions. Basically with StructManager I add the structs to a key-based collection (QHash) and with StructEditor I add them to the UI.
Here is the problem: I need access to about 12 UI Objects in StructEditor plus other 6 Collections in StructManager, and right now I am using pointers as public members so they can be assigned outside the class. I'm sure this is not the best way to do this and I'm looking for a better one. I have some options but they have some drawbacks:

1. Make pointers private and assign them through the class constructor, but the constructor would have at least 19 arguments (12 UI Objects pointers + 6 Collections pointers + 1 parent pointer) and I don't think it results in an easy readable code.
2. The same as the first option but creating a new struct with every parameter I need and pass it through the constructor. Something like:

struct arguments {
   someType *parameter1;
   otherType *parameter2;
...
};

// In StructEditor Class

StructEditor(arguments args);

3. Create another polymorphic class which is inherited by the UI class and implement methods like "addRow", "getRow" and so on. The problem is that I need to get and set many data to the UI objects, so I would have to create many methods and I would have to rewrite this code for at least other of the three applications (that is what I'm trying to avoid/reduce)

I have read some about singletons, but I only need to share these variables with another class, so I think they are unuseful here.

For better understanding, please refer to:
http://code.google.com/p/yalb/source/browse/trunk/%20yalbgameeditor/structeditor.h
http://code.google.com/p/yalb/source/browse/trunk/%20yalbgameeditor/structeditor.cpp

Thanks and excuse my English.

Greetings!

[webJose]

Real world advise: If you see something wrong in a large or complex application/solution, you refactor it in manageable chunks. Without reading anything else from the external sources, I would select option 2 for a cleaner approach.

I would also investigate the possibility of singletons if the UI objects are just one per type or maybe the collections. By having them as singletons you can forget passing them along: The class can pick them up whenever needed.

[Danielc]

Thanks for the answer webJose..

I think I will use the second option as for now. Singletons maybe just make it unnecessarily complex considering the number of UI objects. Anyway I will investigate more about them.

Thanks again and greetings!