Question

I need to find the type of object pointed by pointer.
Code is as below.

//pWindow is pointer to either base Window object or derived Window objects like //Window_Derived.
const char* windowName = typeid(*pWindow).name(); 
if(strcmp(windowName, typeid(Window).name()) == 0)
{
  // ...
}
else if(strcmp(windowName, typeid(Window_Derived).name()) == 0)
{
  // ...     
}

As i can’t use switch statement for comparing string, i am forced to use if else chain.
But as the number of window types i have is high, this if else chain is becoming too lengthy.
Can we check the window type using switch or an easier method ?

EDIT: Am working in a logger module. I thought, logger should not call derived class virtual function for logging purpose. It should do on its own. So i dropped virtual function approach.

Answer 1

First of all use a higher level construct for strings like std::string.
Second, if you need to check the type of the window your design is wrong.
Use the Liskov substitution principle to design correctly.
It basically means that any of the derived Window objects can be replaced with it’s super class.
This can only happen if both share the same interface and the derived classes don’t violate the contract provided by the base class.
If you need some mechanism to apply behavior dynamically use the Visitor Pattern