find out the class type inside the class and its children

Question

Lets say I have the class

template
class Parent {
  public:
  typedef boost::shared_ptr > Ptr;

  inline Ptr
          


        

Answer 1

CRTP will work here:

template
class Parent {
  public:
  typedef boost::shared_ptr Ptr;

  inline Ptr
  makeShared ()
  {
    return Ptr (new Child(*static_cast(this)));
  }
};

template
class Child : public Parent {
};

Note that makeShared is a fairly confusing name as it could be confused with shared_from_this (in C++11 and Boost). A more typical name for your method is clone.