C++ casting programmatically : can it be done?

Question

Let\'s say I have a Base class and several Derived classes. Is there any way to cast an object to one of the derived classes without the ne

Answer 1

You can do this using dynamic_cast, e.g:

if ( Derived1* d1 = dynamic_cast(object) ) {
    // object points to a Derived1
    d1->foo();
}
else if ( Derived2* d2 = dynamic_cast(object) ) {
    // object points to a Derived2
    d2->bar();
}
else {
    // etc.
}

But as others have said, code such as this can indicate a bad design, and you should generally use virtual functions to implement polymorphic behaviour.