Param.h

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#ifndef _PARAM_H
#define _PARAM_H
/*******************************************************************************
*    ALMA - Atacama Large Millimiter Array
*    (c) Associated Universities Inc., 2002 
*    (c) European Southern Observatory, 2002
*    Copyright by ESO (in the framework of the ALMA collaboration)
*    and Cosylab 2002, All rights reserved
*
*    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
*    modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
*    License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
*    version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
*
*    This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
*    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
*    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
*    Lesser General Public License for more details.
*
*    You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
*    License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
*    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307  USA
*
* "@(#) $Id: Param.h,v 1.4 2006/11/29 23:01:26 sharring Exp $"
*
* who       when      what
* --------  --------  ----------------------------------------------
* sharring  10/27/04  created
*/

#ifndef __cplusplus
#error This is a C++ include file and cannot be used from plain C
#endif

#include <string>

using std::string;

namespace Parameters 
{
        class Param
        {    
                public:
                Param();

                Param(const string & nameVal);
            
                virtual ~Param() = 0;
            
                /*
                 * Accessor for the name.
                 * @return the name as a string.
                 */
                virtual string getName();

                /*
                 * Accessor for the type, e.g. "bool" or "int" etc.
                 * @return the type as a string. Each concrete implementation
                 * will return a different string in their implementation for 
                 * this method.
                 */
                virtual string getType() = 0;

                /*
                 * Returns an XML string representation of the param.
                 * @return the param as an XML string
                 * NOTE: the XML is not a complete document, just a fragment.
                 */
                virtual string toString();

                protected:
                virtual string valueToString() = 0;
                string name_m;
        };
}
#endif