Celestia Forums

Unifying bodies and stars shouldn't take up any extra space.

Body would be an abstract base class, which takes up no memory

class Body {
float getRadius();
}

class Star {
float getRadius() {calculate from spectral type;}
}

class Planet {
float getRadius() {return value};
}

This is an example of the flyweight pattern.

Also in replacing dispatch I was thinking in terms of virtual functions. Using RTTI doesn't get you very much advantage over including a type field.