What exactly is a so called "Class Cluster" in Objective-C?

Question

I was reading that NSArray is just such a thing. Sounds heavy. I have 7 really fat books here on my desk about Objective-C, Cocoa and C. None of them mention Class Cluster at all, at least I can't find it in the Index at the back of the books. So what's that?

Answer 1

I don't know what is in the CDP that Steve referenced but basically the Objective-C Class Cluster is a construct that supports implementing the abstract Factory pattern.

The idea is simple: You want to provide a Factory (Cluster) interface that, with minimal description, manufactures and returns a specific concrete instance of a Factory Object that satisfies the behavior of the cluster family described by the Factory (Cluster) interface.

A simple concrete example: This example provides a Laugh factory that produces concrete classes of specific laughter types (e.g. Guffaw, Giggle). Pay attention to the Laugh initWithLaughter: method.

In Laugh.h:

#define kLaughWithGuffaw  1
#define kLaughWithGiggle  2

@interface Laugh: NSObject {}
- (Laugh *) initWithLaughter:(NSUInteger) laughterType;
- (void) laugh;
@end

In Laugh.m:

@interface Guffaws:Laugh {}
- (void) laugh;
@end

@interface Giggles:Laugh {}
- (void) laugh;
@end

@implementation Laugh
- (Laugh *) initWithLaughter:(NSUInteger) laugherType {
    id instanceReturn=nil;
    ; // Removed for ARC [self release]
    if ( laughterType == kLaughWithGuffaw )
        instanceReturn = [[Guffaws alloc]init];
    else if( laughterType == kLaughWithGiggle )
        instanceReturn = [[Giggles alloc]init];
    else
        ; // deal with this
    return instanceReturn;
}

- (void) laugh {
    NSLog(@"Humbug");
}
@end

@implementation Guffaws
    - (void) laugh {
        NSLog(@"OH HA HA HOWAH HA HA HA");
    }
@end

@implementation Giggles
    - (void) laugh {
        NSLog(@"Tee hee");
    }
@end