mRenderer->dothis();
mRenderer->dothat();
mRenderer->etc();
dothis();
dothat();
etc();
#define dothis() mRenderer->dothis()Is this a good idea ? Hmmm, I'm not a big fan of meta-languages...
Is this a good idea ? Hmmm, I'm not a big fan of meta-languages...#define dothis() mRenderer->dothis()
You could take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface
Instead of returning void the methods would return Renderer* (or possibly Renderer&) and you can chain calls like this:
mRenderer->dothis()
->dothat()
->etc();
You could take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface
Instead of returning void the methods would return Renderer* (or possibly Renderer&) and you can chain calls like this:mRenderer->dothis() ->dothat() ->etc();
Paradoxically the thread title involves part of the 'answer'.
Yes, you can (sort of) do that with a class instance.
This is available in a few languages as a built in feature and is called 'With statement' : http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refsu58.html
In C++ you can use a quite genius but very nasty trick that you can wrap in a macro:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2279180/does-c-have-with-keyword-like-pascal
That'll most likely confuse many programmers who never seen that in Pascal (or in any language with 'with' keyword).
It also doesn't let you use any local variables, unlike real with.
If you have such sequences, it's generally a sign that you can factor your code better. For example, if you do this a lot:
someObject->Foo();
someObject->Bar();
someObject->Baz();
someObject->Quux();
You should probably refactor. Consider something like this at a minimum:
void SomeClass::DoSequence () {
Foo();
Bar();
Baz();
Quux();
}
If you need a lot of parameters and error checking, intermediate objects can be useful. In general, though, this is a sign that your classes are doing too much and need to be cleaned up.
Or, it might just happen that you need to do a series of operations on an object as a matter of course, which is no problem at all. In that case, you just use the object and manipulate it as you need. If retyping the name bothers you, rename the variable to something shorter. The compiler doesn't care what it is named; the object's address will be loaded to a register and reused each time without any penalty or anything.
