Class AssociationManager

Direct Known Subclasses:

Cell, Cluster, Jet, ReconstructedParticle, Track

class AssociationManager

This class has been provided as an interim solution to the association problem.
It provides an implemetation of a general templated association\ mechanism which allows any object which inherits from ContainedObject (A special Athena class used for items in the TES) to store a reference to any other such object.
A user can then subsequently retrieve a SmartRefVector containing SmartRefs to all stored associations or to a subset selected by class type. Templates have been used to avoid the user having to cast ContainedObject to specific classes in the latter case.
Every user class which wishes to use this mechanism simply inherits AssociationManager publically.

protected SmartRefVector m_associations

This is the record of associations between ContainedObjects.
It is a vector of SmartRef pointing polymorphically to other ContainedObjects in the TES.

public void associate(const ContainedObject * otherEntity)

Sets a simple one directional association between this entity and another.
otherEntity is automatically converted to SmartRef(otherEntity)

public SmartRefVector associations()

Returns a list of all entities associated with this object.

public SmartRefVector associations(T )

Returns a list of all entities of a certain class which have been associated with this object.
T must inherit from ContainedObject

public bool unAssociated()

A quick way to find out whether there are any associations at all.