Documentation

Observer class. This is used in conjunction with a CAVERNmisc_subject_c class.

What is it for? The subject-observer design pattern is an object oriented alternative to callback functions. We can have multiple observers "watch" a single subject. An observer begins to watch a subject when the subject makes an "attach(&observer)" call. Everytime the subject calls its notify() method, all observers that are watching it will react by calling their update() method.

We do not instantiate the CAVERNmisc_subject_c and the CAVERNmisc_observer_c. Instead, the API user creates classes that inherit the properties of these two superclasses. The class that inherits the observer class properties should implement the update() method. The update method is a pure virtual function. Not implementing it would result in a compiler error.