Tools.h++ Manual

104011 Tandem Computers Incorporated 3-1

Class Overview 3

This section gives an overview of the library and highlights some of the points

of commonality between the classes.

Tools.h++ provides implementation, not policy. Hence, it consists mostly of a

large and rich set of

concrete classes

that are usable in isolation and do

not depend on other classes for their implementation or semantics: they can be

pulled out and used just one or two at a time. In addition, the library also

includes a rich set of abstract classes that deﬁne an interface for persistence,

internationalization, and other issues, and a set of implementation classes that

implement these interfaces.

Various kinds of collection classes are also a central feature of Tools.h++.

These fall into three groups:

• Template collection classes;

• Generic collection classes;

• Smalltalk-like collection classes.

Regardless of their implementation, all collection classes generally follow the

Smalltalk naming conventions and semantical model:

SortedCollection,

Dictionaries, Bags, Sets

, etc. They all use similar interfaces, allowing

for them to be interchanged easily. The ﬁrst two kinds of classes (Template and

Generic) will work with any kind of object. The last (“Smalltalk-like collection

classes”) requires that all collected items inherit from a cosmic object.