Question

Possible Duplicate:
find out the class type inside the class and its children

I have a method to invoke within a base class, a new requirement has arisen and now within this method i need to know which sub class it has been derived from, do you guys happen to know if this is possible?

Answer 1

Here is an example to illustrate the idea behind PeteBecker’s answer:

#include <cstdio>    

class Base {

public:

    virtual char const * type () const = 0;

};

class DerivedA : public Base {

public:

    char const * type () const
    {
        return "A";
    }

};


class DerivedB : public Base{

public:

    char const * type () const
    {
        return "B";
    }

};

int main ()
{
    Base * a = new DerivedA();
    Base * b = new DerivedB();

    fprintf(stderr, "a has type '%s'\n", a->type());
    fprintf(stderr, "b has type '%s'\n", b->type()); 

    delete a;
    delete b;

    return 0;
}

Have a look at http://ideone.com/HaAnY for the output.