Attribute class documentation

Authors

Generated by pauljohn

Software documentation for the Attribute class

Attribute : SwarmObject

Declared in:

Attribute.h

When agents meet new contacts, they create "Attribute" objects in which to store records. They record information about the identity of the other agent--such as its id number and a pointer to its address, and also they keep a snapshot of its culture at the time they met, a pointer to the other's culture (to reflect its state at any given instant, and also it keeps a summary measure of the similarity of the other agent with self.

• -decrSimilarity
• -getAgentPtr
• -getCulturePtrOffset:
• -getFeature:
• -getIDnum
• -getInteractions
• -getSimilarity
• -incrSimilarity
• -incrementInteractions
• -initCulture:
• -sayHi
• -setAgentPtr:
• -setCulturePtr:
• -setFeature:to:
• -setIDnum:
• -setSimilarity:

decrSimilarity

Reduce by one the similarity variable

getAgentPtr

Return a pointer to the agent that this attribute record describes

getCulturePtrOffset:

Check the issue/culture pointer of the other agent and return the i'th opinion

getFeature:

Return the f'th issue/culture value stored in this attribute

getIDnum

Return id number of agent that this attribute record describes

getInteractions

Return the number of interactions

getSimilarity

Returns the memory of similarity, allowing agents to wander about and look at each other and find out 'how similar was that other to me when we last met.'

incrSimilarity

Increment by one the similarity variable

incrementInteractions

Increment by one the interactions counter

initCulture:

Initialize the culure array in which a snapshot of the other's features is to be stored. Its storage is dynamically allocated.

sayHi

Diagnostic method that prints values of variables to the screen

setAgentPtr:

Set a pointer to the agent that this attribute describes

setCulturePtr:

Set this pointer to the culture array of the agent that is represented by this attribute object. Note that the instance variable culture records the culture that was observed at the last interaction, but this pointer always shows the current value.

setFeature:to:

Set teh f'th issue/culture value to v

setIDnum:

Set the id number of the agent about whom these attributes are being saved

setSimilarity:

The Attribute is told to remember the similarity value for the agent that it represents