New subject: comparing to an exact class & storing class association relationships

19 Apr 2012


      I am trying to record and work with the non-inheritance relationships 
between classes.  For example I have...
C subclasses B which subclasses A
E subclasses D which subclasses A
A <-- B <-- C
A <-- D <-- E
with an 1 to N association relationship between B & E.
A class >> relations
    ^ {}
B class >> relations
    ^ { E -> #addE: }
the executing 'B relations' returns the list.  Now in terms of the 
model, it is correct that C inherits the relationship to E,
but in terms of drawing the class relationships on screen, there should 
be nothing drawn between C & E.
The problem is that executing 'C relations' returns { E -> #addE: } but 
I don't want to draw that.
One fix would be a FORCED requirement to define #relations returning ^{} 
on EVERY class that does not have its own relations,
but I want to avoid having to do that.
Another fix is doing...
B class >> relations
    (self isKindOf: B class)
        ifTrue:  [ ^ {     E-> #addE.  }     ]
        ifFalse: [ ^ {}  ]
except #isKindOf includes subclasses.  Is there another method that 
compares to an EXACT class?
I have also considered storing a classes relationships in a class 
instance variable, which I think would work, but it lacks the visibility 
that doing it in code has. Also I hit the same issue with with lazy 
initialization of that variable per class.
Or... am I approaching this all wrong?  Is there another way?
cheers, Ben