Good Day, For the past few years, I have been exposed to both C++ software development as well as Java software development. I have been lucky enough to get to use many different frameworks from both languages (ACE in C++ and countless othes in Java). Introductions aside, I would like to ask whether a generic object factory implementation would be best put in a framework or a library. What I am looking for is something to the effect of the Spring [1] framework but in C++. With the issues like late/dynamic binding having many different implementations in many different platforms, the best I could conceptualize is a static template for different object types. What I'm looking for is something that will be able to allow me to forget about reimplementing the static factory every time I need it, and use a generic template instead. Something that will allow me the following functionalities: <code> // return a reference to a _huge_ statically allocated object, // too impractical to always instantiate whenever an instance of it // is needed: static_factory<Object> ObjectFactory; ... Object & object1 = ObjectFactory.getObject(); ... // later perhaps Object & object2 = ObjectFactory.getObject(); ... // later still Object & object3 = ObjectFactory.getObject(); </code> For other cases when I want a different instance returned every time I need a reference to something new, there's a dynamic_factory -- returning a pointer or reference to an object: <code> dynamic_factory<Object> ObjectFactory; Object instance1 = ObjectFactory.getObject(); std::auto_ptr<Object> instance2 (ObjectFactory.getObject()); </code> -- Of course, it is assumed that `Object' has a default constructor in both dynamic_factory and static_factory. Do you know of anything similar to these already? Otherwise, I would be most glad to put up a sample implementation soon. TIA PS. Perhaps XML definition files may be used to provide object registration when the factory is used dynamically to load object definitions from dynamic libraries. -- Dean Michael C. Berris <mikhailberis@free.net.ph> GPG Key: 0x08AE6EAC http://mikhailberis.blogspot.com Mobile: +63 921 7841815