/* Implement a more natural wrap for factory methods, for example, if you have: ---- geometry.h -------- struct Geometry { enum GeomType{ POINT, CIRCLE }; virtual ~Geometry() {} virtual int draw() = 0; // // Factory method for all the Geometry objects // static Geometry *create(GeomType i); }; struct Point : Geometry { int draw() { return 1; } double width() { return 1.0; } }; struct Circle : Geometry { int draw() { return 2; } double radius() { return 1.5; } }; // // Factory method for all the Geometry objects // Geometry *Geometry::create(GeomType type) { switch (type) { case POINT: return new Point(); case CIRCLE: return new Circle(); default: return 0; } } ---- geometry.h -------- You can use the %factory with the Geometry::create method as follows: %newobject Geometry::create; %factory(Geometry *Geometry::create, Point, Circle); %include "geometry.h" and Geometry::create will return a 'Point' or 'Circle' instance instead of the plain 'Geometry' type. For example, in python: circle = Geometry.create(Geometry.CIRCLE) r = circle.radius() where circle is a Circle proxy instance. NOTES: remember to fully qualify all the type names and don't use %factory inside a namespace declaration, ie, instead of namespace Foo { %factory(Geometry *Geometry::create, Point, Circle); } use %factory(Foo::Geometry *Foo::Geometry::create, Foo::Point, Foo::Circle); */ %define %_factory_dispatch(Type) if (!dcast) { Type *dobj = dynamic_cast($1); if (dobj) { dcast = 1; %set_output(SWIG_NewPointerObj(%as_voidptr(dobj),$descriptor(Type *), $owner | %newpointer_flags)); } }%enddef %define %factory(Method,Types...) %typemap(out) Method { int dcast = 0; %formacro(%_factory_dispatch, Types) if (!dcast) { %set_output(SWIG_NewPointerObj(%as_voidptr($1),$descriptor, $owner | %newpointer_flags)); } }%enddef