Does downcasting defeat the purpose of polymorphism?

Question

I encountered a question today, found here, which raised this question for me.

Here\'s a pseudo-code example of what I\'m getting at:

class Car{
publ         


        

Answer 1

Yes, this is usually the better design case. You should only introduce a virtual function into the hierarchy if it makes sense for all derived classes.

However, your MODEL enum is completely worthless- that's what dynamic_cast is actually for.

if(Lamborghini* lambo = dynamic_cast(cars[i])) {
    lambo->retractTheRoof();
}