Implementing Simulator Using Reflection

Question

hey my friends,
I'm working on implementing a Simulator for PIC Microcontroller which executes Assembly instructions and makes appropriate changes in Register File and Memory.
The way I execute instructions is as follows:
I have an abstract parent class called Instruction, then I made each individual instruction as separate class that extends Instruction parent class. Now I use reflection to execute each individual instruction by creating a new object of that instruction passing its parameters and then calling execute() method.
Example :
MOVE W, 0xFF
CLRF PORTA
my Java code will look like :
Class instructionClass = Class.forName("MOVE");
Instruction inst = (Instruction) instructionClass.newInstance();
inst.passParameters(String[] parms);
inst.execute();
instructionClass = Class.forName("CLRF");
inst = (Instruction) instructionClass.forName("PORTA");
inst.passParameters(String[] parms);
inst.execute();
Is there a better fast idea or I shall keep on the same way ?
Message was edited by:
HypnotiC
Message was edited by:
HypnotiC

Answer 1

If you know all the types of instruction you could write a method that returns
an object based on the first word of the line.public abstract class AbstractInstruction {
    protected String[] paramArr;
    protected void setParam(String[] line) {
        paramArr = new String[line.length - 1];
        System.arraycopy(line, 1, paramArr, 0, line.length - 1);
    public abstract void execute();
    public AbstractInstruction create(String[] line) {
        AbstractInstruction ret;
        if(line[0].equals("MOVE")) ret = new MoveInstruction();
        // else if() etc
        else ret = new ClrfInstruction();
        ret.setParam(line);
        return ret;
class MoveInstruction extends AbstractInstruction {
    public void execute() {
        // do something with paramArr
class ClrfInstruction extends AbstractInstruction {
    public void execute() {
        // do something else with paramArr
}