Thread: Accessing func in daughter from base

  1. #1
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    Accessing func in daughter from base

    We have a mammal class, and a dog class which inherits mammal.
    Class dog has wagTail() func

    Since we can do...

    mammal *ptr = new dog;

    ... how can one access wagTail() using *ptr?

    The book I have mentions a way of explicitly calling it with the pointer but I can't find it. Any help would be appriciated.

  2. #2
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    You can't, and shouldn't be able to, directly access it in this fashion. Dogs can wag their tails, but mammals can't, because mammals may or may not have a tail.

    It makes no sense to be able to call the wag method from a mammal pointer; a dog can do anything a mammal can do because every dog is a mammal, but a mammal can't do everything a dog can, because every mammal is not a dog.

    You'd have to cast the base class (mammal) back to the derived class (dog), and then call the wag method with a dog pointer. But if you actually find yourself doing this in a real application, think long and hard if there isn't a better way to do things. Understanding when, and how, and how NOT to use inheritance and polymorphism is important.
    Last edited by Cat; 07-08-2003 at 06:53 PM.

  3. #3
    Toaster Zach L.'s Avatar
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    dynamic_cast - It will also return 0 if it failed to cast (i.e. if the mammal* was actually a cat* and not a dog*)

    For example:

    Code:
    mammal* ptr = new dog;
    dog* dogPtr = dynamic_cast<dog*>(ptr);
    if(dogPtr != 0)
       dogPtr->wagTail();
    The reason you can't directly is because it would violate some principles of inheritance. When you have a mammal*, you don't care about whether its a dog*, a bird* or a cat*. Each of those will have specialized functions (presumably), but you just want to access those that all mammals have (the functions in mammal).

    ** edit **
    I just realized that birds are not mammals.
    Last edited by Zach L.; 07-08-2003 at 06:56 PM.
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  4. #4
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    Originally posted by Zach L.
    When you have a mammal*, you don't care about whether its a dog*, a bird* or a cat*.
    You might care if it was a bird *, because a bird isn't a mammal at all. They're of class aves, not class mammalia

    Edit: Dammit, beaten to the punch.

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