PropertyBag Class Reference
[Property Interface]

#include <rtt/PropertyBag.hpp>

Detailed Description

A container for holding references to properties.

Introduction

This class groups properties of different types into a single container. A PropertyBag object can handed to a Marshaller object which will serialize the contents of the PropertyBag.

All operations on a PropertyBag are non recursive. The PropertyBag itself is not aware of the possible hierarchical structure. You need to use the global scope functions for handling hierarchical structures.

A PropertyBag is not the owner of the properties within. It defines a group of properties, nothing more. When this group of properties contains another PropertyBag, this bag is considered as a 'pointer' to other properties. Even such a bag is not owned by the PropertyBag.

Constructing PropertyBags

It can happen in an application that a PropertyBag is filled with dynamically created Property objects. The bag is not responsible for cleaning up these objects once they are no longer needed. The application which uses the PropertyBag has to find a way of deleting the possible dangling pointers.

Warning:: The elements in a PropertyBag are unordered. Operations on the bag may change the relative order of the elements.

Using PropertyBags

To add a Property<ClassT> prop to a PropertyBag bag, use

     bag.add(&prop).

To retrieve this property, either use find or getProperty to retrieve a Property by name :

     PropertyBase* pb = bag.find( "name" ).
     Property<ClassT> pb = bag.getProperty<ClassT>( "name" ).

Both will return null if no such property exists.

See also:: PropertyBase, Property, BagOperations

Definition at line 98 of file PropertyBag.hpp.


Public Types
typedef std::vector < PropertyBase * >	Properties
	The container in which the properties are stored.
typedef Properties	PropertyContainerType
	Deprecated, use Properties.
typedef Properties::iterator	iterator
	An iterator over the Properties.
typedef Properties::const_iterator	const_iterator
	A const iterator over the Properties.
typedef std::vector < std::string >	Names
	The container to hold names of Properties.
Public Member Functions
	PropertyBag ()
	The default constructor.
	PropertyBag (const std::string &_type)
	The typed constructor.
	PropertyBag (const PropertyBag &orig)
void	add (PropertyBase *p)
	Add a valid property to the container.
void	remove (PropertyBase *p)
	Remove a property from the container.
bool	addProperty (PropertyBase *p)
	Add a valid property to the container.
bool	removeProperty (PropertyBase *p)
	Remove a property from the container.
void	clear ()
	Removes all PropertyBases from this bag, without deleting them.
void	list (Names &names) const
	List the names of all properties.
Names	list () const
	List the names of all properties.
bool	empty () const
	Return true if no properties are present in this bag.
template<class T>
Property< T > *	getProperty (const std::string &name) const
	Get a Property<T> with name name.
PropertyBase *	getItem (int i) const
	Returns the i'th Property, starting from 0.
size_t	size () const
	Get the number of Properties in this bag.
void	identify (PropertyIntrospection *pi) const
	Identify the contents of this bag through introspection.
void	identify (PropertyBagVisitor *pi) const
	Identify the contents of this bag through introspection.
PropertyBase *	find (const std::string &name) const
	Find the PropertyBase with name name.
PropertyBag &	operator= (const PropertyBag &orig)
	This assignment assigns all PropertyBases of another bag in this bag, making an exact copy or the original.
PropertyBag &	operator<<= (const PropertyBag &source)
	The update operator.
PropertyBag &	operator<< (PropertyBase *item)
	The 'add' operator.
const std::string &	getType () const
void	setType (const std::string &newtype)
Properties &	getProperties ()
	Returns a list of all the property objects in this bag.
const Properties &	getProperties () const
	Returns a list of all the property objects in this bag.
Names	getPropertyNames () const
	Returns a list of all the names of the properties in this bag.
iterator	begin ()
const_iterator	begin () const
iterator	end ()
const_iterator	end () const
Protected Attributes
Properties	mproperties
std::string	type
Classes
struct	FindProp
	A function object for finding a Property by name. More...