Re: Boost and multi-level inheritance

From:
David Abrahams <dave@boost-consulting.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:58:13 CST
Message-ID:
<87mywaxxs2.fsf@grogan.peloton>
on Wed Aug 29 2007, Marcin Gil <marcin.gil-AT-NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

class LessThan
{
   public:
     virtual bool operator<(const LessThan&) const;
}

and then

class A: public LessThan
{
   public:
     virtual bool operator<(const A&) const;
}

class B: public LessThan
{
   public:
     virtual bool operator<(const B&) const;
}

And if I have
A a; B b1, b2; LessThan& ltb1 = b1, &ltb2 = b2, &lta = a;

and
lta < ltb1 - should fall back to LessThan::operator<()
   since b is not convertible to a but both are LessThan;


You need to add

    using LessThan::operator<;

to the bodies of A and B, and that will work.

ltb1 < ltb2 - should call B::operator<()


in that case you need to override

  operator<(LessThan const&) const
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

in B.

I would also like to force implementation of operator< and operator==
in all classes derived from LessThan.


They all inherit a public operator< from LessThan. Make it pure
virtual if you want to force it to be implemented.

What would you like operator== to do?

So I thought that either LessThen should be a template (and this
would give no common operator<() ) or I should also use boost for
the ease of work.


I'm not sure boost the operators library can help you until you have a
clearer idea of what you need.

--
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com

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