14.1. Overview of Dynamic Types

This section describes the classes related to dynamic types that are used through the rest of the documentation. At the bottom of the section you can also find a short example using the functionality.

14.1.1. Involved classes

The following class diagram describes the relationship among the classes related to dynamic types. Please, refer to the description of each class to find its purpose and the nature of the relationship with the rest of the classes.

Dynamic types class diagram

14.1.1.1. DynamicType

Base class of all types declared dynamically. It represents a dynamic data type that can be used to create DynamicData values. By design, the structure of a dynamic type (its member fields) cannot be modified once the type is created.

14.1.1.2. DynamicTypeBuilderFactory

Singleton class that is in charge of the creation and the management of every DynamicType and DynamicTypeBuilder. It declares functions to create builders for each kind of supported types. Given a builder for a specific type, it can also create the corresponding DynamicType. Some simpler types can be created directly, avoiding the step of creating a DynamicTypeBuilder. Please, refer to the Supported Types documentation for details about which ones support this option.

Every object created by the factory must be deleted to avoid memory leaking. Refer to the Memory management section for details.

14.1.1.3. DynamicTypeBuilder

Intermediate class used to configure a DynamicType before it is created. By design, the structure of a DynamicType (its member fields) cannot be modified once the object is created. Therefore, all its structure must be defined prior to its creation. The builder is the object used to set up this structure.

Once defined, the DynamicTypeBuilderFactory is used to create the DynamicType from the information contained in the builder. As a shortcut, the builder exposes a function build() that internally uses the DynamicTypeBuilderFactory to return a fully constructed DynamicType. The types created with build() are still subject to the Memory management restrictions, and must be deleted by the DynamicTypeBuilderFactory.

Builders can be reused after the creation of a DynamicType, as the changes applied to the builder do not affect to types created previously.

14.1.1.4. TypeDescriptor

Stores the information about one type with its relationships and restrictions. This is the class that describes the inner structure of a DynamicType. The DynamicTypeBuilder has an internal instance of TypeDescriptor that modifies during the type building process. When the DynamicType is created, the DynamicTypeBuilderFactory uses the information of the TypeDescriptor in the builder to create the DynamicType. During the creation, the TypeDescriptor is copied to the DynamicType, so that it becomes independent from the DynamicTypeBuilder, and the builder can be reused for another type.

14.1.1.5. DynamicTypeMember

Represents a data member of a DynamicType that is also a DynamicType. Compound types (dynamic types that are composed of other dynamic types) have a DynamicTypeMember for every child DynamicType added to it.

14.1.1.6. MemberDescriptor

Just as a TypeDescriptor describes the inner structure of a DynamicType, a MemberDescriptor stores all the information needed to manage a DynamicTypeMember, like their name, their unique ID, or the default value after the creation. This information is copied to the DynamicData on its creation.

14.1.1.7. DynamicData

While a DynamicType describes a type, DynamicData represents a data instance of a DynamicType. It provides functions to access and modify the data values in the instance.

There are two ways to work with DynamicData:

• Activating the macro DYNAMIC_TYPES_CHECKING, which creates a variable for each primitive kind to help the debug process.

• Without this macro, the size of the DynamicData is reduced, using only the minimum needed internal values, but it makes the code harder to debug.

14.1.1.8. DynamicDataFactory

Singleton class that is in charge of the creation and the management of every DynamicData. It can take a DynamicType and create an instance of a corresponding DynamicData. Every data object created by the factory must be deleted to avoid memory leaking. Refer to the Memory management section for details.

It also allows to create a TypeIdentifier and a (Minimal and Complete) TypeObject from a TypeDescriptor.

14.1.1.9. DynamicPubSubType

This class is an adapter that allows using DynamicData on Fast DDS. It inherits from TopicDataType and implements the functions needed to communicate the DynamicData between Publishers and Subscribers.

14.1.2. Minimum example

This is a short example to illustrate the use of the dynamic types and how the classes describe above interact with each other. While the code snippet can be used as a quick reference for code building, the sequence diagram below provides a visual interpretation of the actions.

// Create a builder for a specific type
DynamicTypeBuilder_ptr builder = DynamicTypeBuilderFactory::get_instance()->create_enum_builder();

// Use the builder to configure the type
builder->add_empty_member(0, "DEFAULT");
builder->add_empty_member(1, "FIRST");
builder->add_empty_member(2, "SECOND");

// Create the data type using the builder
// The builder will internally use the DynamicTypeBuilderFactory to create the type
DynamicType_ptr type = builder->build();

// Create a new data instance of the create data type
DynamicData_ptr data (DynamicDataFactory::get_instance()->create_data(type));

// Now we can set or read data values
data->set_int32_value(1);

// No need of deleting the objects, since we used the
// automanaged smart pointers

Sequence diagram of the code above