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• What most games would benefit from having

  - by Phil

  I think I've seen "questions" like this on stackoverflow but sorry if I'm overstepping any bounds. Inspired by my recent question and all the nice answers (Checklist for finished game?) I think every gamedev out there has something he/she thinks that almost every game should have. That knowledge is welcome here! So this is probably going to be an inspirational subjective list of some sorts and the point is that anyone reading this question will see a point or two that they've overlooked in their own development and might benefit from adding. I think a good example might be: "some sort of manual or help section. Of course it should be proportional to how advanced the game is. Some users won't need it and won't go looking for it but the other ones that do will become very frustrated if they can't remember how to do something specific that should be in the manual". A bad example might be "good gameplay". Of course every game benefits from this but the answer is not very helpful.

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• Clarify the Single Responsibility Principle.

  - by dsimcha

  The Single Responsibility Principle states that a class should do one and only one thing. Some cases are pretty clear cut. Others, though, are difficult because what looks like "one thing" when viewed at a given level of abstraction may be multiple things when viewed at a lower level. I also fear that if the Single Responsibility Principle is honored at the lower levels, excessively decoupled, verbose ravioli code, where more lines are spent creating tiny classes for everything and plumbing information around than actually solving the problem at hand, can result. How would you describe what "one thing" means? What are some concrete signs that a class really does more than "one thing"?

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• returning null vs returning zero, which would be better?

  - by Dark Star1

  I inherited a project that I am managing and having to maintain pending the redevelopment of the code base. At the moment I am being tasked with adding little feature all over the place and have gotten into the habit of returning null instead of zero in parts of the code where I am working on. The problem is we have a client that is using this code and parts of code that require data from my implemented features recieve a null and dump the stack trace in UI. I would like to avoid this entirely from my input but without the nullPointer exceptions there's the potential that errors would be introduced into the client's data which may go un-noticed. Usually I would have come up with my own error notification system but I have never inherited a project before. so I am unsure whether to continue down this path. I still believe that the stack dump is preferable to un-noticed data corruption/inaccuracies.

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• How does URL Rewriting affect SEO?

  - by Costa

  The following paragraph is from SEO Google Guide Google is good at crawling all types of URL structures, even if they're quite complex, but spending the time to make your URLs as simple as possible for both users and search engines can help. Some webmasters try to achieve this by rewriting their dynamic URLs to static ones; while Google is fine with this, we'd like to note that this is an advanced procedure and if done incorrectly, could cause crawling issues with your site. What makes URL re-writing implementation incorrect for GoogleBot? I am using Asp.net 3.5 framework.

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• Summary of usage policies for website integration of various social media networks?

  - by Dallas

  To cut to the chase... I look at Twitter's usage policy and see limitations on what can and can't be done with their logo. I also see examples of websites that use icons that have been integrated with the look and feel of their own site. Given Twitter's policy, for example, it would appear that legal conversations/agreements would need to take place to do this, especially on a commercial site. I believe it is perfectly acceptable to have a plain text button that simply has the word "Tweet" on it, that has the same functionality. My question is if anyone can provide online (or other) references that attempt to summarize what can and can't be done when integrating various social networks into your own work? The answer I will mark as the correct one will be the one which provides the best resource(s) giving the best summaries of what can and can't be done with specific logos/icons, with a secondary factor being that a variety of social networking sites are addressed in your answer. Before people point to specific questions, I am looking for a well-rounded approach that considers a breadth of networks and considerations. Background: I would like to incorporate social media icons and functionality, but would like to consider what type of modifications can be done without needing to involve lawyers. For example, can I bring in a standard Facebook logo, but incorporate my site color into the logo? Would the answer differ if I maintained their color, but add in a few pixels of another color to transition? I am not saying I want to do this, but rather using it as an example.

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• Making a class pseudo-immutable by setting a flag

  - by scott_fakename

  I have a java project that involves building some pretty complex objects. There are quite a lot (dozens) of different ones and some of them have a HUGE number of parameters. They also need to be immutable. So I was thinking the builder pattern would work, but it ends up require a lot of boilerplate. Another potential solution I thought of was to make a mutable class, but give it a "frozen" flag, a-la ruby. Here is a simple example: public class EqualRule extends Rule { private boolean frozen; private int target; public EqualRule() { frozen = false; } public void setTarget(int i) { if (frozen) throw new IllegalStateException( "Can't change frozen rule."); target = i; } public int getTarget() { return target; } public void freeze() { frozen = true; } @Override public boolean checkRule(int i) { return (target == i); } } and "Rule" is just an abstract class that has an abstract "checkRule" method. This cuts way down on the number of objects I need to write, while also giving me an object that becomes immutable for all intents and purposes. This kind of act like the object was its own Builder... But not quite. I'm not too excited, however, about having an immutable being disguised as a bean however. So I had two questions: 1. Before I go too far down this path, are there any huge problems that anyone sees right off the bat? For what it's worth, it is planned that this behavior will be well documented... 2. If so, is there a better solution? Thanks

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• Implementing Command Pattern in Web Application

  - by KingOfHypocrites

  I'm looking to implement the command pattern in a web application (asp.net c#)... Since the commands come in text format from the client, what is the best way to translate the string to a command object? Should I use reflection? Currently I just assume the command that comes in matches the file name of a user control. This is a bit of a hack. Rather than have a select case statement that says if string = "Dashboard" then call Dashboard.Execute(), is there a pattern for working with commands that originate as strings?

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• Informing GUI objects about screen size - Designing

  - by Mosquito

  I have a problem with designing classes for my game which I create. In my app, there is: class CGame which contains all the information about game itself, e.g. screen width, screen height, etc. In the main() function I create a pointer to CGame instance. class CGUIObject which includes fields specifying it's position and draw() method, which should know how to draw an object according to screen size. class CGUIManager which is a singleton and it includes a list of CGUIObject's. For each object in a list it just calls draw() method. For clarity's sake, I'll put some simple code: class CGame { int screenWidth; int screenHeight; }; class CGUIObject { CPoint position; void draw(); // this one needs to know what is a screen's width and height }; class CGUIManager // it's a singleton { vector<CGUIObject*> guiObjects; void drawObjects(); }; And the main.cpp: CGame* g; int main() { g = new CGame(); while(1) { CGUIManager::Instance().drawObjects(); } return 0; } Now the problem is, that each CGUIObject needs to know the screen size which is held by CGame, but I find it very dumb to include pointer to CGame instance in every object. Could anyone, please, tell me what would be the best approach to achieve this?

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• Image slider not working when website is hosted on remote server [on hold]

  - by Tushar Khatiwada

  I'm having a different problem. I made a html website and it contains Nivo Slider in the index page. The site is working perfectly when viewed locally. I uploaded the site to remote server but the slider is not being displayed and the photo from the gallery is not working as expected ( popups on the local pc). The url of the site is: http://d138444.u24.elitehostingwizard.com/ The screenshot from the local pc: http://postimg.org/image/lxiqzx7br/ Thanks

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• Should I build a multi-threaded system that handles events from a game and sorts them, independently, into different threads based on priority?

  - by JonathonG

  Can I build a multi-threaded system that handles events from a game and sorts them, independently, into different threads based on priority, and is it a good idea? Here's more info: I am about to begin work on porting a mid-sized game from Flash/AS3 to Java so that I can continue development with multi-threading capabilities. Here's a small bit of background about the game: The game contains numerous asynchronous activities, such as "world updating" (the game environment is constantly changing based on a set of natural laws and forces), procedural generation of terrain, NPCs, quests, items, etc., and on top of that, the effects of all of the player's interactions with his environment are programmatically calculated in real time, based on a set of constantly changing "stats" and once again, natural laws and forces. All of these things going on at once, in an asynchronous manner, seem to lend themselves to multi-threading very well. My question is: Can I build some kind of central engine that handles the "stacking" of all of these events as they are triggered, and dynamically sorts them out amongst the available threads, and would it be a good idea? As an example: Essentially, every time something happens (IE, a magic missile being generated by a spell, or a bunch of plants need to grow to their next stage), instead of just processing that task right then and adding the new object(s) to a list of managed objects, send a reference to that event to a core "event handler" that throws it into a stack of all other currently queued events, which then sorts them out and orders them according to urgency, splits them between a number of available threads for as-fast-as-possible multithreaded execution.

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• Include in service layer all the application's functions or only the reusable ones?

  - by BornToCode

  Background: I need to build a main application with some operations (CRUD and more) (-in winforms), I need to make another application which will re-use some of the functions of the main application (-in webforms). I understood that using service layer is the best approach here. If I understood correctly the service should be calling the function on the BL layer (correct me if I'm wrong) The dilemma: In my main winform UI - should I call the functions from the BL, or from the service? (please explain why) Should I create a service for every single function on the BL even if I need some of the functions only in one UI? for example - should I create services for all the CRUD operations, even though I need to re-use only update operation in the webform? YOUR HELP IS MUCH APPRECIATED

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• Can observer pattern be represented by cars and traffic lights?

  - by eeerahul

  I wanted to verify with all of you, if I have a correct Observer Pattern analogy. The scenario is as follows: Consider, at a junction, there is a traffic signal, having red, yellow and green lights respectively. There are vehicles facing the traffic signal post. When it shows red, the vehicles stop, when it shows green, the vehicles move on. In case, it is yellow, the driver must decide whether to go or to stop, depending on whether he/she has crossed the stop line or not. At the same time, there are vehicles that do not care about the signal. They would do as they like. The similarities are that, the Traffic Signal happens to be the subject, notifying its states by glowing the appropriate lights. Those looking at it and following the signal are the ones subscribed to it, and behave according to the state of the subject. Those who do not care about it, are sort-of un-subscribed from the traffic signal. Please tell me, if you think this is a correct analogy or not?

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• How do I deal with the problems of a fast side-scroller?

  - by Ska

  I'm making a side scrolling airplane game and when I begin going very fast I begin to experience some problems as a player: Elements are not distinguishable, like power-ups from bullets, etc I start to feel dizzy and uncomfortable There isn't enough time to see what's coming How can I sort this out? Do I use less details in all the grahpics? Tiny Wings has the same horizontal movement speed as in my game but it doesn't suffer from these problems. Are there any other really fast side-scrollers I could take as a reference?

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• Player rewards in games where you normally have nothing to purchase

  - by PeterK

  In many games there are rewards such as gold coins, points, etc. When these rewards can be used to purchase in-game items, it motivates the player to keep playing. Let's say we have an online game, poker, Yatzy etc. What type of reward would keep the players playing if there are few in-game items available to buy, or none at all? What I am looking for is a reward system that entices the players to play more in a game environment where there isn't that much to purchase. For example, there isn't much to buy in a poker or Yatzy game with the gold you win. I guess having some titles that are added to the userid is one way, or maybe purchasing a logo for the id... A leaderboard is another. Any thoughts on this?

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• Checking timeouts made more readable

  - by Markus

  I have several situations where I need to control timeouts in a technical application. Either in a loop or as a simple check. Of course – handling this is really easy, but none of these is looking cute. To clarify, here is some C# (Pseudo) code: private DateTime girlWentIntoBathroom; girlWentIntoBathroom = DateTime.Now; do { // do something } while (girlWentIntoBathroom.AddSeconds(10) > DateTime.Now); or if (girlWentIntoBathroom.AddSeconds(10) > DateTime.Now) MessageBox.Show("Wait a little longer"); else MessageBox.Show("Knock louder"); Now I was inspired by something a saw in Ruby on StackOverflow: Now I’m wondering if this construct can be made more readable using extension methods. My goal is something that can be read like “If girlWentIntoBathroom is more than 10 seconds ago” 1st attempt if (girlWentIntoBathroom > (10).Seconds().Ago()) MessageBox.Show("Wait a little longer"); else MessageBox.Show("Knock louder"); So I wrote an extension for integer that converts the integer into a TimeSpan public static TimeSpan Seconds(this int amount) { return new TimeSpan(0, 0, amount); } After that, I wrote an extension for TimeSpan like this: public static DateTime Ago(this TimeSpan diff) { return DateTime.Now.Add(-diff); } This works fine so far, but has a great disadvantage. The logic is inverted! Since girlWentIntoBathroom is a timestamp in the past, the right side of the equation needs to count backwards: impossible. Just inverting the equation is no solution, because it will invert the read sentence as well. 2nd attempt So I tried something new: if (girlWentIntoBathroom.IsMoreThan(10).SecondsAgo()) MessageBox.Show("Knock louder"); else MessageBox.Show("Wait a little longer"); IsMoreThan() needs to transport the past timestamp as well as the span for the extension SecondsAgo(). It could be: public static DateWithIntegerSpan IsMoreThan(this DateTime baseTime, int span) { return new DateWithIntegerSpan() { Date = baseTime, Span = span }; } Where DateWithIntegerSpan is simply: public class DateWithIntegerSpan { public DateTime Date {get; set;} public int Span { get; set; } } And SecondsAgo() is public static bool SecondsAgo(this DateWithIntegerSpan dateAndSpan) { return dateAndSpan.Date.Add(new TimeSpan(0, 0, dateAndSpan.Span)) < DateTime.Now; } Using this approach, the English sentence matches the expected behavior. But the disadvantage is, that I need a helping class (DateWithIntegerSpan). Has anyone an idea to make checking timeouts look more cute and closer to a readable sentence? Am I a little too insane thinking about something minor like this?

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• Preferred way for dealing with customer-defined data in enterprise application

  - by Axarydax

  Let's say that we have a small enterprise web (intranet) application for managing data for car dealers. It has screens for managing customers, inventory, orders, warranties and workshops. This application is installed at 10 customer sites for different car dealers. First version of this application was created without any way to provide for customer-specific data. For example, if dealer A wanted to be able to attach a photo to a customer, dealer B wanted to add e-mail contact to each workshop, and dealer C wanted to attach multiple PDF reports to a warranty, each and every feature like this was added to the application, so all of the customers received everything on new update. However, this will inevitably lead to conflicts as the number of customers grow as their usage patterns are unique, and if, for instance, a specific dealer requested to have an ability to attach (for some reason) a color of inventory item (and be able to search by this color) as a required item, others really wouldn't need this feature, and definitely will not want it to be a required item. Or, one dealer would like to manage e-mail contacts for their employees on a separate screen of the application. I imagine that a solution for this is to use a kind of plugin system, where we would have a core of the application that provides for standard features like customers, inventory, etc, and all of the customer's installed plugins. There would be different kinds of plugins - standalone screens like e-mail contacts for employees, with their own logic, and customer plugin which would extend or decorate inventory items (like photo or color). Inventory (customer,order,...) plugins would require to have installation procedure, hooks for plugging into the item editor, item displayer, item filtering for searching, backup hook and such. Is this the right way to solve this problem?

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• Is the Entity Component System architecture object oriented by definition?

  - by tieTYT

  Is the Entity Component System architecture object oriented, by definition? It seems more procedural or functional to me. My opinion is that it doesn't prevent you from implementing it in an OO language, but it would not be idiomatic to do so in a staunchly OO way. It seems like ECS separates data (E & C) from behavior (S). As evidence: The idea is to have no game methods embedded in the entity. And: The component consists of a minimal set of data needed for a specific purpose Systems are single purpose functions that take a set of entities which have a specific component I think this is not object oriented because a big part of being object oriented is combining your data and behavior together. As evidence: In contrast, the object-oriented approach encourages the programmer to place data where it is not directly accessible by the rest of the program. Instead, the data is accessed by calling specially written functions, commonly called methods, which are bundled in with the data. ECS, on the other hand, seems to be all about separating your data from your behavior.

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• Mobile Game Programming for Beginners: Part 2 of 4

  Second part of four in a beginners' guide to J2ME game programming.

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• Entity Framework 5, separating business logic from model - Repository?

  - by bnice7

  I am working on my first public-facing web application and I’m using MVC 4 for the presentation layer and EF 5 for the DAL. The database structure is locked, and there are moderate differences between how the user inputs data and how the database itself gets populated. I have done a ton of reading on the repository pattern (which I have never used) but most of my research is pushing me away from using it since it supposedly creates an unnecessary level of abstraction for the latest versions of EF since repositories and unit-of-work are already built-in. My initial approach is to simply create a separate set of classes for my business objects in the BLL that can act as an intermediary between my Controllers and the DAL. Here’s an example class: public class MyBuilding { public int Id { get; private set; } public string Name { get; set; } public string Notes { get; set; } private readonly Entities _context = new Entities(); // Is this thread safe? private static readonly int UserId = WebSecurity.GetCurrentUser().UserId; public IEnumerable<MyBuilding> GetList() { IEnumerable<MyBuilding> buildingList = from p in _context.BuildingInfo where p.Building.UserProfile.UserId == UserId select new MyBuilding {Id = p.BuildingId, Name = p.BuildingName, Notes = p.Building.Notes}; return buildingList; } public void Create() { var b = new Building {UserId = UserId, Notes = this.Notes}; _context.Building.Add(b); _context.SaveChanges(); // Set the building ID this.Id = b.BuildingId; // Seed 1-to-1 tables with reference the new building _context.BuildingInfo.Add(new BuildingInfo {Building = b}); _context.GeneralInfo.Add(new GeneralInfo {Building = b}); _context.LocationInfo.Add(new LocationInfo {Building = b}); _context.SaveChanges(); } public static MyBuilding Find(int id) { using (var context = new Entities()) // Is this OK to do in a static method? { var b = context.Building.FirstOrDefault(p => p.BuildingId == id && p.UserId == UserId); if (b == null) throw new Exception("Error: Building not found or user does not have access."); return new MyBuilding {Id = b.BuildingId, Name = b.BuildingInfo.BuildingName, Notes = b.Notes}; } } } My primary concern: Is the way I am instantiating my DbContext as a private property thread-safe, and is it safe to have a static method that instantiates a separate DbContext? Or am I approaching this all wrong? I am not opposed to learning up on the repository pattern if I am taking the total wrong approach here.

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• Alternatives to sql like databases

  - by user613326

  Well i was wondering these days computers usually have 2GB or 4GB memory I like to use some secure client server model, and well an sql database is likely candidate. On the other hand i only have about 8000 records, who will not frequently be read or written in total they would consume less then 16 Megabyte. And it made me wonder what would be good secure options in a windows environment to store the data work with it multi-client single server model, without using SQL or mysql Would for well such a small amount of data maybe other ideas better ? Because i like to keep maintenance as simple as possible (no administrators would need to know sql maintenance, as they dont know databases in my target environment) Maybe storing in xml files or.. something else. Just wonder how others would go if ease of administration is the main goal. Oh and it should be secure to, the client server data must be a bit secure (maybe NTLM files shares https or...etc)

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• Directx vs XNA - Which is better for me? [closed]

  - by tristo

  Recently I got Visual Studio 2012 from visual studio 2010, although did not expect Visual Studio to 2012 to designed the way it was. Anyway I am pleased with some of VS 2012 technology and have moved all of my projects to it. At this point of time since I got VS 2012 I have been into making windows applications and other non-game activities. ALTHOUGH have recently gotten into the spirit of game development and I am planning to make a 3d comical game, shader effects, not too complicated meshes, but it requires alot of lighting effects to emphasise certain parts of the game. When I was using VS 2010 I had a great time making 2d games with XNA, it uses a great language, and has a very awesome system. But I no longer have XNA with me, and the workarounds described in stackoverflow always gives me errors while using xna. Anyway it seems that microsoft have stuffed themselves up with xna anyway with the weirdness of Windows 8, and it being only avaliabe on pc and xbox. Due to these reasons I have decided to work with Directx and Direct3d to produce my new game, although the overflowing credits after each directx game gives me the shivers, and the low-level coding of directx also puts me on thin ice with my games, left in a confusional mess with what decision I should make. I don't know anything about directx or direct3d. I am an indie developer, but I am planning to take on alot of professional aspects of games. I don't have heaps of time(2-3 hours a day) I don't mind the complexity of how directx works, as long as I can learn how to make the fundementals of a game in a week. I am also unsure if directx is really for my situation, and keep with xna game development. Anyone can tell me the best technology for me would be great.

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• How do you prevent inflation in a virtual economy?

  - by Tetrad

  With your typical MMORPG, players can usually farm the world for raw materials essentially forever. Monsters/mineral veins/etc are usually on some sort of respawn timer, so other than time there really isn't a good way to limit the amount of new currency entering the system. That really only leaves money sinks to try to take money out of the system. What are some strategies to prevent inflation of the in-game currency?

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• Moving dozens of existing standalone retail sites to one central inventory database: what should I know going in?

  - by palintropos

  This will be the first project of this scale that I have attempted, and the first time I have run a website at all (much less dozens) using an off-site database. In particular, I'd like to know: what sort of optimizations I should read up on to make this run as smoothly as possible? any pitfalls/gotchas wiser, more experienced folk are aware of I should be on the lookout for, and what damage-control and preventative measures I should take against the nightmare scenario of the main server (hosting the database) having an outage, grinding over 100 websites to a halt (because they have no access to the product data).

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• Question about creating a sprite based 2-D Side Scroller with scaling/zooming

  - by Arthur

  I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on how best to go about creating a 2-D game with zooming/scaling features akin to the early Samurai Showdown games. In this case it would be a side scroller a la Metal Slug, the zooming would come in as more enemy sprites entered the screen, or when facing a large sized boss. A feature that would be both cosmetic as well as functional to the game. I've done some reading and noticed a few suggestions that included drawing different sized sprites, a standard size and zoomed out size. Any thoughts? Thanks for your time.

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• Is this a pattern? Should it be?

  - by Arkadiy

  The following is more of a statement than a question - it describes something that may be a pattern. The question is: is this a known pattern? Or, if it's not, should it be? I've had a situation where I had to iterate over two dissimilar multi-layer data structures and copy information from one to the other. Depending on particular use case, I had around eight different kinds of layers, combined in about eight different combinations: A-B-C B-C A-C D-E A-D-E and so on After a few unsuccessful attempts to factor out the repetition of per-layer iteration code, I realized that the key difficulty in this refactoring was the fact that the bottom level needed access to data gathered at higher levels. To explicitly accommodate this requirement, I introduced IterationContext class with a number of get() and set() methods for accumulating the necessary information. In the end, I had the following class structure: class Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const = 0; }; class RecursingIterator : public Iterator { RecursingIterator(const Iterator &below); }; class IterateOverA : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // Iterate over members in dataStructure1 // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // and set it in the context // invoke the sub-iterator }; class IterateOverB : public RecursingIterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // iterate over members dataStructure2 (form context) // set dataStructure2's item in the context // locate corresponding item in dataStructure2 (passed via context) // invoke the sub-iterator }; void main() { class FinalCopy : public Iterator { virtual void iterateOver(const Structure &dataStructure1, IterationContext &ctx) const { // copy data from structure 1 to structure 2 in the context, // using some data from higher levels as needed } } IterationContext ctx(dateStructure2); IterateOverA(IterateOverB(FinalCopy())).iterate(dataStructure1, ctx); } It so happens that dataStructure1 is a uniform data structure, similar to XML DOM in that respect, while dataStructure2 is a legacy data structure made of various structs and arrays. This allows me to pass dataStructure1 outside of the context for convenience. In general, either side of the iteration or both sides may be passed via context, as convenient. The key situation points are: complicated code that needs to be invoked in "layers", with multiple combinations of layer types possible at the bottom layer, the information from top layers needs to be visible. The key implementation points are: use of context class to access the data from all levels of iteration complicated iteration code encapsulated in implementation of pure virtual function two interfaces - one aware of underlying iterator, one not aware of it. use of const & to simplify the usage syntax.

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