The Component_List Class

The Component_List class, as used later, maintains a linked list of components which may be present in the fan-out of a connector. The definition of the class is as follows:

class Component_List
{
public:
        Component_List();
        void            add(Component *);
        boolean         is_empty();
        void            propagate();

private:
        Component_Node  *comp_list;
};

This class contains a public constructor which has no parameters (a default constructor). The constructor sets the pointer to the head of the list, comp_list, to null.

Component_List::Component_List() : 
        comp_list(0)
{ }

The add() method accepts a pointer to a component and simply adds it to the linked list of component pointers.

void
Component_List::add(Component *c)
{ 
        Component_Node       *nc = new Component_Node(c);

        nc->next = comp_list;
        comp_list = nc;
}

The Component_Node class is simply a class which contains a pointer to a component and a pointer to the next element in the list. All the data elements in this class are made private. Component_List is made a so-called friend of Component_Node so that Component_List is the only class which may access the members of a Component_Node class.

The is_empty() and propagate() methods, being related more closely to circuit simulation, are discussed in the next chapter.