Complex (to me) Object Questions

TComfort · March 2nd, 2009, 04:19 AM

Here's the basics:
We make machines, so here's what we have:
1. Stuff we sell - Sales Order class - lots of Sales Order objects. (Do I use Collections, like in the old days, or Dictionaries?)
2. Stuff we buy - Purchase Order class - lots of Purchase Order objects...
3. Stuff we build - Work Order class - lots of Work Orders...

I would like to have one utility to print data from all 3 classes. Is this the proper use for Secondary Interfaces? Can I write one printing method and use it to print data from each class? If so, how do I do it? If not, what's the best way to write one method to print all three objects?

gbianchi · March 2nd, 2009, 07:18 AM

Hello.. You want to print this data in which way?? using a report component (like crystal reports)? or to a text file, or something else??

Also, you don't have collections now ;) you have structures that inherits from collections.

TComfort · March 2nd, 2009, 01:57 PM

Gonzalo,
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.
For the various Orders objects, I want to use a quick text printing routine. The print is mostly for me.
No collections in VB2008? How are they handled now?

gbianchi · March 2nd, 2009, 05:11 PM

Then you should override the to text property (or make yourself one) that returns the data you want formated like a string. Then you can write a procedure that get all the data from every "collection".
You could write and interface, or inherits all this classes from a print class, but somewhere you will have to say how to print the data.

And for the collections, you have collections, but they are specialized (sortedlist, hashmap, dictionary, and others).