An object-oriented class library for C++ programs

Abstract

The Object-Oriented Program Support (OOPS) class library is a portable collection of classes similar to those of Smalltalk-80 that has been developed using the C++ programming language under the UNIX operating system. The OOPS library includes generally useful data types, such as String, Date and Time, and most of the Smalltalk-80 collection classes such as OrderedCtn (indexed arrays), LinkedList (singly linked lists), Set (hash tables), and Dictionary (associative arrays). Arbitrarily complex data structures comprised of OOPS and user-defined objects can be stored on disk files or moved between UNIX processes by means of an object I/O facility. The classes Process, Scheduler, Semaphore and SharedQueue provide multiprogramming with coroutines. This paper gives a brief introduction to object-oriented programming and how it is supported by the C+ + programming language. An overview of the OOPS library is also presented, followed by a programming example. The implementation details of two of the class library's more interesting features, object I/O and processes, are described. The paper concludes with a discussion of the differences between the OOPS library and Smalltalk-80 and some observations based on our programming experience with C++ and OOPS.