Fluent interfaces and inheritance in C++

Question

I\'d like to build a base (abstract) class (let\'s call it type::base) with some common funcionality and a fluent interface, the problem I\'m facing is the retu

Answer 1

You should be returning references/pointers, and you should not need to keep the type information.

class base {
  public:
     base();
     virtual ~base();

     base &with_foo();
     base &with_bar();
  protected:
     // whatever...
};

class my_type : public base {
  public:
    my_type();        
    // more methods...
};

base *build_my_type()
{
   return &new my_type()->with_foo().with_bar();
}

You already have a virtual destructor. Presumably you have other virtual functions. Access everything through the base type and the virtual functions declared there.