Pathed resource allocator

Published March 01, 2007
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Something that I have dealt with on and off for the entire time I've been game programming is the idea that I need certain resources to be loaded from file exactly once, but used by multiple entities. I've written several generations of allocator-type classes and structures to manage this, but my latest effort is pretty nifty, fairly safe, and easy. In this iteration, I created a templated class that maintains an std::map of string->object mappings, where each object in the map is a boost::weak_ptr to an allocated resource. Entities that require a certain named resource call the allocator to get a boost::shared_ptr to the resource. In this way, I have a central mapping of name->object that does not itself maintain a shared_ptr; thus, when all entities release a resource, it gets dumped. Although an entry remains in the allocator map, the behavior of weak_ptr is such that it will indicate its expired status, and subsequent requests for the same pathed resource will result in a reload. Having this central mapping also makes it easier to perform iterative operations on the loaded resources, such as dumping, reloading, re-submitting vertex buffers, or what have you, as necessary. Here's my first try at the allocator class. Thoughts?

#ifndef TEMP_PATHED_RALLOCATOR#define TEMP_PATHED_RALLOCATOR#include #include #include #include #include // TPathedAllocator// Implements a template class for an allocator/manager for string-pathed// resource loading.// Useful for images, textures, meshes, etc... which can be shared among// many objects, and which should only be loaded once.template <class T>class TPathedAllocator{    public:        typedef typename std::map >::iterator TIter;                TPathedAllocator()        {        };                ~TPathedAllocator()        {        };                boost::shared_ptr getResource(const char *n)        {            std::string name=std::string(n);            TIter iter;            iter = m_map.find(name);            if(iter == m_map.end())            {                // Resource not found, create new                boost::shared_ptr temp(new T(n));                boost::weak_ptr tempweak(temp);                m_map[name]=tempweak;                return temp;            }                if((*iter).second.expired())            {                // Resource expired                boost::shared_ptr temp(new T(n));                boost::weak_ptr tempweak(temp);                m_map[name]=tempweak;                return temp;            }                // Get here, resource valid and not expired            boost::shared_ptr temp((*iter).second);            return temp;        };                template void iterateObjects(_Function f)        {            TIter ti= m_map.begin();            while(ti != m_map.end())            {                if(!(*ti).second.expired())                {                    boost::shared_ptr temp((*ti).second);                    f(temp);                }                ++ti;            }                        };                    protected:        std::map > m_map;};#endif


I perform resource construction via a const char * because many types of resource allocation calls may end up bound to Lua, and this simplifies things.
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