mercredi 22 août 2018

What design pattern do I need for a single object which can receive data from different sources?

I'm trying to create some code in Swift that will enable the following functionality. There is a single class (call it the Datastore) that is the main interface into the code - this is what most users of the API will deal with most of the time.

This Datastore class is flexible. You could use it with data from a text file, or from Bluetooth data, or from data coming in over WiFi, etc. I call these providers of data. So, for example, you could have a BTProvider class which will take bluetooth data and send it to the Datastore when it arrives. One Datastore will never need to get data from multiple providers of data.

What design patterns or language tools help me to achieve this?

I thought about using protocols, but it feels backwards - a protocol defines which methods an object can respond to - but in this case, that will be the Datastore object - of which there is only one. In my head I feel like I want a reverse-protocol - something where I can guarantee "this object /calls/ these methods on another object". Then all the providers could implement this, and the Datastore could have a method "setProvider: ProviderOfData" where provider of data is the name of the reverse-protocol.

This would be a lot easier if I could poll the providers from the Datastore (then they could implement a protocol that defines methods like 'getMostRecentData', but due to the nature of it (asynchronous data receiving from WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.) this isn't possible and doesn't feel elegant - though if you have ideas I'm open to them!

This doesn't seem like this is the first time this would've been done, so I'm interested in how it's commonly done so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire