Thanks for the review and feedback everyone. I need to review Bob's
comments in more detail, but since basically everyone asked about
adding Layer to the list of arguments, let me address that. I
considered adding it since the FigEdge factory
(*Renderer.getFigEdgeFor()) seemed to require it (but then don't pass
it to the constructor usually), although the FigNode factory did not.
The main issue as I remember it was getting the PGMLStackParser did
the setLayer as a separate step and I really, REALLY only wanted a
single constructor for use both by the parser and interactive use.
Also, the I'll take another look and see if there's a solution.
The other thing that is causing me a little difficulty is the
invocation of overloaded methods from constructors. The problem with
this is that the subclasses data structures haven't necessarily been
initialized yet because their constructor hasn't finished running.
Anyone have a good pattern for addressing this? Might current feeling
is that constructors shouldn't call methods that can be overloaded.
Here's an example,
class Parent {
Fig fig1;
Parent(Object owner) {
fig1 = new Fig();
setOwner(Object owner);
}
void setOwner(Object owner) {
super.setOwner(owner);
fig1.setOwner(Object)
}
class Child extends Parent{
Fig anotherFig;
Child(Object owner) {
super(owner);
anotherFig = new Fig();
setOwner(owner);
void setOwner(Object owner) {
super.setOwner(owner);
anotherFig.setOwner(owner);
}
}
at the time that the Parent constructor attempts to invoke
this.setOwner() (which will resolve to Child.setOwner()), the field
anotherFig is still null, so this will throw a NullPointerException.
My current idea is to move all one-time only initialization to private
methods and make it a rule that the constructors can't invoke any
methods which can be overridden. In this case, have a
setOwnerInternal() that the constructor can use (and that setOwner()
can call during the transition period, if necessary).
Anyone got better ideas?
Tom
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