Retrieve

Object Structural

Intent

To use an object from another nonlocal source in the local scope, thereby creating a relationship and a connection between the local scoping object and the nonlocal source.

Motivation

Objects are an established and well-understood mechanism for encapsulating common data and methods and enforcing policy, as shown in Create Object. Singular objects, however, are of extremely limited utility. In fact, if there were only one object in a system, and nothing external to it, it could be considered a procedural program—all data and methods are local and fully exposed to one another. Nonobject data types can be faked in any object-oriented system that supports the use of function objects and methodless classes. It is therefore critical that a well-formed methodology be put into place for transporting objects across object boundaries. There are two situations in which this methodology is necessary, and they differ only slightly. The simplest case is when an external object has an exposed field that is being accessed. The more complex case is when an external object has a m....