Question

As an example in Ruby (1.8)

i = 4
i.class => fixnum

i += 1.3
i.class => float

Can this be achieved in C++?

for instance

template<class T>
struct Number {};

Number<int> foo;

foo.changeTypeToFloat(); // <-- Possible?

// foo now Float?

Answer 1

C++ is a statically-typed language. A variable has a fixed type. The best you can do at the language level is a conversion to a new variable, e.g.:

int i = 5;
float f = static_cast<float>(i);

Alternatively, you could write a variant class, and have the conversion handled internally. But this would really be syntactic sugar for the above.