nested dynamic data structure

Your explanation is a little ambiguous.

Could you provide an example of what you're trying to do?

an analogy to what I'm trying to do would be if I needed
to keep records for a dynamic list of people. If each person can have nickels, dimes and pennies. I need to add  new people as they come and each person can add nickels, dimes and pennies as much as they want. A variable length lists of variable length list.

Hope this helps, it's the best I can think of with out going into the details of my work.

I don't think there is a standard pattern, if thats what you're after. Typically, you would use a container that keeps a (variable) "list" of references to the actual objects. The objects themselves could then contain (once again a variable) "list" of references to other objects and so on. The "lists" could be hashmaps, deque's or whatever, depending on your needs. All this is provided in the STL so you have to do precious little to set up such a structure. With the STL functionality you cab have many layers of dynamic structures, as you call it.

The only thing you have to be careful of is keeping track of who creates and destroys the objects if you want to use pointers to objects in stead of the actual objects.

I don't know if this answers your question. If not, just shout

mitchguy,
You can do this, but you have to have a common interface.

Example of a common interface class:

#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>

using namespace std;

class Xyz
{
public:
     int x;
     int y;
     int z;
     void OnTrigger(void)
     {
          cout << "Xyz" << endl;
     }
};

class Abc
{
public:
     string SomeStr;
     void OnTrigger(void)
     {
          cout << "Abc" << endl;
     }
};

class FooFoo
{
public:
     void OnTrigger(void)
     {
          cout << "FooFoo" << endl;
     }
};

class PureVirtualClass
{
public:
     virtual void OnTrigger(void)=0;
};

template<typename T>
class TargetClassHolder : public PureVirtualClass
{
public:
     TargetClassHolder(T &Src)
     {
          TargetClass = &Src;
     }
     void OnTrigger(void)
     {
          TargetClass->OnTrigger();
     }
     T *TargetClass;
};

class CHandleTrigger
{
public:
     template<typename T>
     void Register(T& Src)
     {
          m_Targets.push_back(new TargetClassHolder<T>(Src));
     }
     void RunAllTriggers(void)
     {
          for(vector<PureVirtualClass*>::iterator i = m_Targets.begin();i != m_Targets.end();++i)
          {
               (*i)->OnTrigger();
          }
     }
     static bool DeleteAndNullifyIterator(PureVirtualClass *& pObj)
     {
          delete pObj;
          pObj = NULL;
          return true;
     }
     ~CHandleTrigger()
     {//Delete the TargetClassHolder(s).  This does NOT delete the actual target class, only the TargetClassHolder
          m_Targets.erase(remove_if(m_Targets.begin(), m_Targets.end(),CHandleTrigger::DeleteAndNullifyIterator), m_Targets.end());
     }
private:
     //can do this here with any class derived from Trigger_vir
     vector<PureVirtualClass*> m_Targets;
};



int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
     Abc abc;
     Xyz xyz;
     FooFoo foofoo;
     CHandleTrigger MyTriggerHandler;
     MyTriggerHandler.Register(abc);
     MyTriggerHandler.Register(xyz);
     MyTriggerHandler.Register(foofoo);
     MyTriggerHandler.RunAllTriggers();

     system("pause");
     return 0;
}

With the above example, class CHandleTrigger is able to add any class to  m_Targets, which has an OnTrigger member function.
So the common interface for the above example is the OnTrigger member function.

LoungeLizard,
why is it better to use pointers than the object itself?

So if I want to add a new record I need to get a new object and a new pointer or would it be better to encapsulate a pointer in the object itself.

mitchguy,
Did you look at the code I posted?

CHandleTrigger is able to store a pointer to any object, as long as that object has a common interface.

Axter, is your code meant for visual c++?
I'm programming on Linux

>>Axter, is your code meant for visual c++?

My code is for any standard C++ compiler.  Including Linux.

The only non-portable part of the code is system("pause"), which you can exclude, since it has nothing to do with the class examples.

>>why is it better to use pointers than the object itself?

Well, it is not neccesarily better, but more often than not the same objects are used in various places, and then you create the object only once and refer to (either by pointer (*) or reference (&)) afterwards in stead of making local copies everytime you need it. In case of complex objects this would represent a signficant saving in terms of speed and memory

Axter,
I'm a little confused on how I can apply what you've
shown me to my problem. Lets say I have a file with the following data:
person1
N N N N N N D D D D D P P
person2
N N N D D P
person3
N D D P P P P
.
.
.
personN
N...D....P...

Where N, D and P are Nickels, Dimes and Pennies and there
can be any number of these in a row.

Would each person be a class in your example?
If Xyz's data members in your example were changed to
int D;
int N;
int P;
how could I store more than one of each type,
Or would D, N and P be classes?

Ideally I would like to insert any new person and their
data anywhere in my list.

Lounge lizard,
If I add in your class example
int n;
inside of class nickel
how would I print that value out.
here's what I tried , but I just get an address.
 n1.five = 5;
 n2.five = 6;
 n3.five = 7;
 p1.addNickel(&n1);
 p1.addNickel(&n2);

 p2.addNickel(&n2);
 p2.addNickel(&n3);
 myGroup.addPerson(&p1);
 myGroup.addPerson(&p2);

 std::list <person *>::iterator ptr;
     ptr = myGroup.myPersons.begin();
while(ptr != myGroup.myPersons.end()){
     cout<<"person has "<<*ptr<<endl;
     ptr++;
}

I'm not exactly sure what you want to do. Do you want to know how many nickels each person has, or do you want to add a value to the class nickel that you can manually modify?

Anyway, you are using the iterator incorrectly. *ptr will return the CONTENTS of the position in the list where the iterator is pointing to.

Since we have pointers in our list, that means you get a pointer. If you want to print something, you'll have to use (*ptr)->somePrintValue

This is an example using the code I posted previously.

#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>

using namespace std;

class Penny
{
public:
    int GetValue()
    {
          return 1;
    }
};

class Nickel
{
public:
    int GetValue()
    {
          return 5;
    }
};

class Dime
{
public:
    int GetValue()
    {
          return 10;
    }
};

class Coins
{
public:
    virtual int GetValue()=0;
};

template<typename T>
class TargetClassHolder : public Coins
{
public:
    TargetClassHolder(T &Src)
    {
         TargetClass = &Src;
    }
    int GetValue()
    {
         return TargetClass->GetValue();
    }
    T *TargetClass;
};

class Person
{
public:
    template<typename T>
    void AddToPocket(T& Src)
    {
         m_Targets.push_back(new TargetClassHolder<T>(Src));
    }
    int GetTotal()
    {
          int Total = 0;
         for(vector<Coins*>::iterator i = m_Targets.begin();i != m_Targets.end();++i)
         {
              Total += (*i)->GetValue();
         }
           return Total;
    }
    static bool DeleteAndNullifyIterator(Coins *& pObj)
    {
         delete pObj;
         pObj = NULL;
         return true;
    }
    ~Person()
    {//Delete the TargetClassHolder(s).  This does NOT delete the actual target class, only the TargetClassHolder
         m_Targets.erase(remove_if(m_Targets.begin(), m_Targets.end(),Person::DeleteAndNullifyIterator),
m_Targets.end());
    }
private:
    //can do this here with any class derived from Trigger_vir
    vector<Coins*> m_Targets;
};



int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    Penny penny;
    Nickel nickel;
    Dime dime;
    Person MyTriggerHandler;
    MyTriggerHandler.AddToPocket(penny);
    MyTriggerHandler.AddToPocket(nickel);
    MyTriggerHandler.AddToPocket(dime);
    int Total = MyTriggerHandler.GetTotal();
    cout << "Total = " << Total << endl;

    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

Thank you both for all of your help. I will post some points for you also Axter.