'typeid' versus 'typeof' in C++

Question

I am wondering what the difference is between typeid and typeof in C++. Here\'s what I know:

• typeid is mentioned in t

Answer 1

Answering the additional question:

my following test code for typeid does not output the correct type name. what's wrong?

There isn't anything wrong. What you see is the string representation of the type name. The standard C++ doesn't force compilers to emit the exact name of the class, it is just up to the implementer(compiler vendor) to decide what is suitable. In short, the names are up to the compiler.

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These are two different tools. typeof returns the type of an expression, but it is not standard. In C++0x there is something called decltype which does the same job AFAIK.

decltype(0xdeedbeef) number = 0; // number is of type int!
decltype(someArray[0]) element = someArray[0];

Whereas typeid is used with polymorphic types. For example, lets say that cat derives animal:

animal* a = new cat; // animal has to have at least one virtual function
...
if( typeid(*a) == typeid(cat) )
{
    // the object is of type cat! but the pointer is base pointer.
}