Is there a way to instantiate objects from a string holding their class name?

Question

Nope, there is none, unless you do the mapping yourself. C++ has no mechanism to create objects whose types are determined at runtime. You can use a map to do that mapping yourself, though:

template<typename T> Base * createInstance() { return new T; }

typedef std::map<std::string, Base*(*)()> map_type;

map_type map;
map["DerivedA"] = &createInstance<DerivedA>;
map["DerivedB"] = &createInstance<DerivedB>;

And then you can do

return map[some_string]();

Getting a new instance. Another idea is to have the types register themself:

// in base.hpp:
template<typename T> Base * createT() { return new T; }

struct BaseFactory {
    typedef std::map<std::string, Base*(*)()> map_type;

    static Base * createInstance(std::string const& s) {
        map_type::iterator it = getMap()->find(s);
        if(it == getMap()->end())
            return 0;
        return it->second();
    }

protected:
    static map_type * getMap() {
        // never delete'ed. (exist until program termination)
        // because we can't guarantee correct destruction order 
        if(!map) { map = new map_type; } 
        return map; 
    }

private:
    static map_type * map;
};

template<typename T>
struct DerivedRegister : BaseFactory { 
    DerivedRegister(std::string const& s) { 
        getMap()->insert(std::make_pair(s, &createT<T>));
    }
};

// in derivedb.hpp
class DerivedB {
    ...;
private:
    static DerivedRegister<DerivedB> reg;
};

// in derivedb.cpp:
DerivedRegister<DerivedB> DerivedB::reg("DerivedB");

You could decide to create a macro for the registration

#define REGISTER_DEC_TYPE(NAME) \
    static DerivedRegister<NAME> reg

#define REGISTER_DEF_TYPE(NAME) \
    DerivedRegister<NAME> NAME::reg(#NAME)

I'm sure there are better names for those two though. Another thing which probably makes sense to use here is shared_ptr.

If you have a set of unrelated types that have no common base-class, you can give the function pointer a return type of boost::variant<A, B, C, D, ...> instead. Like if you have a class Foo, Bar and Baz, it looks like this:

typedef boost::variant<Foo, Bar, Baz> variant_type;
template<typename T> variant_type createInstance() { 
    return variant_type(T()); 
}

typedef std::map<std::string, variant_type (*)()> map_type;

A boost::variant is like an union. It knows which type is stored in it by looking what object was used for initializing or assigning to it. Have a look at its documentation here. Finally, the use of a raw function pointer is also a bit oldish. Modern C++ code should be decoupled from specific functions / types. You may want to look into Boost.Function to look for a better way. It would look like this then (the map):

typedef std::map<std::string, boost::function<variant_type()> > map_type;

std::function will be available in the next version of C++ too, including std::shared_ptr.

No there isn't. My preferred solution to this problem is to create a dictionary which maps name to creation method. Classes that want to be created like this then register a creation method with the dictionary. This is discussed in some detail in the GoF patterns book.

The short answer is you can't. See these SO questions for why:

1. Why does C++ not have reflection?
2. How can I add reflection to a C++ application?

I have answered in another SO question about C++ factories. Please see there if a flexible factory is of interest. I try to describe an old way from ET++ to use macros which has worked great for me.

ET++ was a project to port old MacApp to C++ and X11. In the effort of it Eric Gamma etc started to think about Design Patterns

boost::functional has a factory template which is quite flexible: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_54_0/libs/functional/factory/doc/html/index.html

My preference though is to generate wrapper classes which hide the mapping and object creation mechanism. The common scenario I encounter is the need to map different derived classes of some base class to keys, where the derived classes all have a common constructor signature available. Here is the solution I've come up with so far.

#ifndef GENERIC_FACTORY_HPP_INCLUDED

//BOOST_PP_IS_ITERATING is defined when we are iterating over this header file.
#ifndef BOOST_PP_IS_ITERATING

    //Included headers.
    #include <unordered_map>
    #include <functional>
    #include <boost/preprocessor/iteration/iterate.hpp>
    #include <boost/preprocessor/repetition.hpp>

    //The GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY directive controls the number of factory classes which will be generated.
    #ifndef GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY
        #define GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY 10
    #endif

    //This macro magic generates GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY + 1 versions of the GenericFactory class.
    //Each class generated will have a suffix of the number of parameters taken by the derived type constructors.
    #define BOOST_PP_FILENAME_1 "GenericFactory.hpp"
    #define BOOST_PP_ITERATION_LIMITS (0,GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY)
    #include BOOST_PP_ITERATE()

    #define GENERIC_FACTORY_HPP_INCLUDED

#else

    #define N BOOST_PP_ITERATION() //This is the Nth iteration of the header file.
    #define GENERIC_FACTORY_APPEND_PLACEHOLDER(z, current, last) BOOST_PP_COMMA() BOOST_PP_CAT(std::placeholders::_, BOOST_PP_ADD(current, 1))

    //This is the class which we are generating multiple times
    template <class KeyType, class BasePointerType BOOST_PP_ENUM_TRAILING_PARAMS(N, typename T)>
    class BOOST_PP_CAT(GenericFactory_, N)
    {
        public:
            typedef BasePointerType result_type;

        public:
            virtual ~BOOST_PP_CAT(GenericFactory_, N)() {}

            //Registers a derived type against a particular key.
            template <class DerivedType>
            void Register(const KeyType& key)
            {
                m_creatorMap[key] = std::bind(&BOOST_PP_CAT(GenericFactory_, N)::CreateImpl<DerivedType>, this BOOST_PP_REPEAT(N, GENERIC_FACTORY_APPEND_PLACEHOLDER, N));
            }

            //Deregisters an existing registration.
            bool Deregister(const KeyType& key)
            {
                return (m_creatorMap.erase(key) == 1);
            }

            //Returns true if the key is registered in this factory, false otherwise.
            bool IsCreatable(const KeyType& key) const
            {
                return (m_creatorMap.count(key) != 0);
            }

            //Creates the derived type associated with key. Throws std::out_of_range if key not found.
            BasePointerType Create(const KeyType& key BOOST_PP_ENUM_TRAILING_BINARY_PARAMS(N,const T,& a)) const
            {
                return m_creatorMap.at(key)(BOOST_PP_ENUM_PARAMS(N,a));
            }

        private:
            //This method performs the creation of the derived type object on the heap.
            template <class DerivedType>
            BasePointerType CreateImpl(BOOST_PP_ENUM_BINARY_PARAMS(N,const T,& a))
            {
                BasePointerType pNewObject(new DerivedType(BOOST_PP_ENUM_PARAMS(N,a)));
                return pNewObject;
            }

        private:
            typedef std::function<BasePointerType (BOOST_PP_ENUM_BINARY_PARAMS(N,const T,& BOOST_PP_INTERCEPT))> CreatorFuncType;
            typedef std::unordered_map<KeyType, CreatorFuncType> CreatorMapType;
            CreatorMapType m_creatorMap;
    };

    #undef N
    #undef GENERIC_FACTORY_APPEND_PLACEHOLDER

#endif // defined(BOOST_PP_IS_ITERATING)
#endif // include guard

I am generally opposed to heavy macro use, but I've made an exception here. The above code generates GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY + 1 versions of a class named GenericFactory_N, for each N between 0 and GENERIC_FACTORY_MAX_ARITY inclusive.

Using the generated class templates is easy. Suppose you want a factory to create BaseClass derived objects using a string mapping. Each of the derived objects take 3 integers as constructor parameters.

#include "GenericFactory.hpp"

typedef GenericFactory_3<std::string, std::shared_ptr<BaseClass>, int, int int> factory_type;

factory_type factory;
factory.Register<DerivedClass1>("DerivedType1");
factory.Register<DerivedClass2>("DerivedType2");
factory.Register<DerivedClass3>("DerivedType3");

factory_type::result_type someNewObject1 = factory.Create("DerivedType2", 1, 2, 3);
factory_type::result_type someNewObject2 = factory.Create("DerivedType1", 4, 5, 6);

The GenericFactory_N class destructor is virtual to allow the following.

class SomeBaseFactory : public GenericFactory_2<int, BaseType*, std::string, bool>
{
    public:
        SomeBaseFactory() : GenericFactory_2()
        {
            Register<SomeDerived1>(1);
            Register<SomeDerived2>(2);
        }
}; 

SomeBaseFactory factory;
SomeBaseFactory::result_type someObject = factory.Create(1, "Hi", true);
delete someObject;

Note that this line of the generic factory generator macro

#define BOOST_PP_FILENAME_1 "GenericFactory.hpp"

Assumes the generic factory header file is named GenericFactory.hpp

Detail solution for registering the objects, and accessing them with string names.

common.h:

#ifndef COMMON_H_
#define COMMON_H_


#include<iostream>
#include<string>
#include<iomanip>
#include<map>

using namespace std;
class Base{
public:
    Base(){cout <<"Base constructor\n";}
    virtual ~Base(){cout <<"Base destructor\n";}
};
#endif /* COMMON_H_ */

test1.h:

/*
 * test1.h
 *
 *  Created on: 28-Dec-2015
 *      Author: ravi.prasad
 */

#ifndef TEST1_H_
#define TEST1_H_
#include "common.h"

class test1: public Base{
    int m_a;
    int m_b;
public:
    test1(int a=0, int b=0):m_a(a),m_b(b)
    {
        cout <<"test1 constructor m_a="<<m_a<<"m_b="<<m_b<<endl;
    }
    virtual ~test1(){cout <<"test1 destructor\n";}
};



#endif /* TEST1_H_ */

3. test2.h
#ifndef TEST2_H_
#define TEST2_H_
#include "common.h"

class test2: public Base{
    int m_a;
    int m_b;
public:
    test2(int a=0, int b=0):m_a(a),m_b(b)
    {
        cout <<"test1 constructor m_a="<<m_a<<"m_b="<<m_b<<endl;
    }
    virtual ~test2(){cout <<"test2 destructor\n";}
};


#endif /* TEST2_H_ */

main.cpp:

#include "test1.h"
#include "test2.h"

template<typename T> Base * createInstance(int a, int b) { return new T(a,b); }

typedef std::map<std::string, Base* (*)(int,int)> map_type;

map_type mymap;

int main()
{

    mymap["test1"] = &createInstance<test1>;
    mymap["test2"] = &createInstance<test2>;

     /*for (map_type::iterator it=mymap.begin(); it!=mymap.end(); ++it)
        std::cout << it->first << " => " << it->second(10,20) << '\n';*/

    Base *b = mymap["test1"](10,20);
    Base *b2 = mymap["test2"](30,40);

    return 0;
}

Compile and Run it (Have done this with Eclipse)

Output:

Base constructor
test1 constructor m_a=10m_b=20
Base constructor
test1 constructor m_a=30m_b=40