Function pointer by name?

I've scoured the forum for any topics that already addressed this question, so apologies if this has already been covered...


BIG PICTURE: Keeping game specific code completely seperate from the game engine code

SETUP: I am loading a text file (game specific) that contains data for entities within a game environment. The engine creates the entities based on this text data. Each entity is given a unique name, a string, which is stored in the engine for referencing the entity's data. I have a .bmx file that contains game specific types derived from an engine base type that are the entities in the engine. Each entity type also contains a function called 'new*EntityName*Func()' which just creates a new instance of this particular type. Example: an entity named "Alien" whould have a member function in it's type called 'newAlienFunc()'.

PROBLEM: I am trying to build the name of this member function when my text file is parsed and point a function pointer to it. This will enable the engine code that creates new entities to simply call a generic 'newEntityFunc()' which would actually point to a unique function for each entity type based on run-time data. If my memory serves, this was not a problem in a C implementation of this engine - hoping someone has insight into this area of BlitxMax.

Thanks in advance!

Create a map of the functions and get it from there, either that or use the factory pattern to devise something.

Yah put pointers to the functions in an array and store the index instead of the name.