Larry Evans <cppljevans <at> suddenlink.net> writes:
On 07/01/10 20:30, Larry Evans wrote: [snip] This sounds something like functor in category theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functor
What you have is 2 functions:
f_i the interface function f_t the template function
and you want someway to convert a call to the f_i to f_t. So, given:
t_i0 f_i(t_i1, t_i2, ..., t_in)
and:
t_t0 f_t(t_t1, t_t2, ..., t_tn)
you want a set of conversion functions:
t_tj c_j(t_ij)
so that you can call:
t_t0 f_t(c_1(t_i1), c_2(t_i2), ... c_n(t_in) )
or something like that, right?
-regards, Larry
This is the general idea, but it does not really coincide with the notion of mathematical functor. These are homomorphism, which means that they preserve a mathematical structure. Well here, there is no such kind of structure I guess. The "objects" are here the types and their specific instance. Plus functors are arrows with one direction, while the c_i's are bidirectional (possible update of the interface parameters during their destruction). The convertors preserves composition, as functors do. So I would think about "mapping objects" rather than functors. But the call t_t0 f_t(c_1(t_i1), c_2(t_i2), ... c_n(t_in) ) is exactly the idea ! Kind regards, Raffi