polymorphic C++ references

Question

I was wondering how you can do polymorphism with references, as opposed to pointers.

To clarify, see the following minimal example:

cl         


        

Answer 1

It's no stretch to imagine why references can work polymorphically like pointers (not to mention references are often implemented as pointers anyway). Here's a quick example:

class Base { 
public:
    virtual void something() { }
};

class Derived : public Base {
public:
    void something() { }
};

Base& foo() {
    static Derived d;
    return d;
}

foo().something(); // calls Derived's something

Also why are you allocating dynamic memory for a reference? You probably shouldn't be using a reference in this case at all. Also, writing classes with reference members effectively prevents assignment (as I heard someone say quite well).