Make string key based dynamic factories case insensitive

[Nick Draper]

This is irritating on so many levels.

Add in a CaseInsensitiveDynamicFactory, inheriting from DynamicFactory, that performs key comparisons ignoring case.

Initial design discussed with Martyn.

[Nick Draper]

re #10051 make default dynamic factories case insensitive

Changeset: cb5c82a84a8c5b58766c880916aa10bfd0fb786d

[Nick Draper]

re #10051 stricmp is strcasesmp in linux

Changeset: 51fe2d47a95fda9415f0f12b01c51f3e5372355a

[Nick Draper]

re #10051 need the include <cstring> for linux

Changeset: 3646ec98eebd4ebde6824aafd1b26b9f648aa9d6

[Nick Draper]

re #10051 need the include <cstring> for linux

Changeset: 7f95d322f955d847248bc0103d495c2bca676cc2

[Nick Draper]

email sent to all developers:

Hello,

After running into problems with user input being fed straight to a dynamic factory again, it became apparent that the Case sensitivity of our DynamicFactories was not useful, and in fact most of the time is a pain.

Let me explain using the UnitFactory for example:
If you use: 
UnitFactory.create(“dSpacing”) // it works
But 
UnitFactory.create(“dspacing”) // it throws an error

Clearly it would never make sense to have two units only vary by the case of the unit ID, so therefore it would be better to have our Dynamic Factories be case insensitive when comparing the string keys.  Martyn and I had a good think and could not come up with a reason for any of the DynamicFactories to remain case sensitive.

In case a reason turns up it is simple to have a particular DynamicFactory Case sensitive, and an example of this is used in the DynamicFactoryTest, you just need to add an optional template argument when inheriting from DynamicFactory.

So this give you a case insensitive factory:
class MyFactory : public DynamicFactory <MyObjectBaseClasss>
And this give you a case sensitive one
class MyFactory : public DynamicFactory <<MyObjectBaseClasss, CaseSensitiveStringComparator>

[Nick Draper]

To Test

1. Run CreateSampleWorkspace, set the Unit as "dspacing"
2. Plot the resulting workspace, the unit should be correctly set as dSpacing
3. Check all unit tests have passed(I've checked this), and all system tests pass.

[Martyn Gigg]

It looks like there has been a memory leak created in the DynamicFactoryTest:

​http://builds.mantidproject.org/view/Valgrind/job/valgrind_develop_core_packages/119/valgrindResult/pid=4938,0x6/

[Martyn Gigg]

On line 70 of DynamicFactoryTest.h, the object return by createUnwrappedInstance is only deleted after the second call so the first one is not deleted.

[Michael Wedel]

Refs #10051. Fix valgrind warning in DynamicFactoryTest

Changeset: 5621ac212d9161e303e4b3e712f223aebedbeba1

[Michael Wedel]

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/feature/10051_Case_Insensitive_Dynamic_Factories'

Full changeset: ​751f476bf48214aee0bd58c8919d0725284af902

[Michael Wedel]

It works as described in the testing information, as demonstrated by the attached screenshots made before and after the change.

[Stuart Campbell]

This ticket has been transferred to github issue ​10893