Re: Problem type-casting to a derived class

From:
Paul Bibbings <paul.bibbings@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 11 May 2010 10:26:42 +0100
Message-ID:
<871vdiu6ul.fsf@gmail.com>
Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> writes:

Consider that I have the following classes: Base, A, B, Derived

Class A inherits class Base and class Derived inherits both class A
and class B. So, the inheritance diagram would be something like
(mind the ASCII art)

Base
|
A B
-------
   |
Derived

Let's assume that I get a pointer to an object of type Base. Yet, I
need to access attributes which are defined in class B.

The thing is, a dynamic_cast<> from Base to B fails to materialize and
a reinterpret_cast<> also appears to fail.


In what way does the dynamic_cast<B*> fail?

So, is this possible? If so, what's the secret?


   10:23:05 Paul Bibbings@JIJOU
   /cygdrive/d/CPPProjects/CLCPP $cat casting_to_derived.cpp // file: casting_to_derived.cpp

   #include <cassert>

   class Base {
   public:
      virtual ~Base() { }
   };

   class A : public Base { };

   class B { };

   class Derived : public A, public B { };

   int main()
   {
      Derived d;
      Base *b_ptr = &d;

      assert(dynamic_cast<B*>(b_ptr));
   }

   10:23:10 Paul Bibbings@JIJOU
   /cygdrive/d/CPPProjects/CLCPP $g++ -static -o casting_to_derived
      casting_to_derived.cpp

   10:23:15 Paul Bibbings@JIJOU
   /cygdrive/d/CPPProjects/CLCPP $./casting_to_derived

   10:23:23 Paul Bibbings@JIJOU
   /cygdrive/d/CPPProjects/CLCPP $

Regards

Paul Bibbings

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