[C++] Class names

[@$3.1415rin]

is there a possibility to get the name of a class from one of its base classes without much effort ? would be nice if it'd be somewhat standardized stuff

[Rick]

Use dynamic_cast?

[sfx1999]

I am not sure quite what you mean, but you could have a private variable that is modified to the class's name in the class's constructor. You could also make a global constant value and just set the string to use it.

[@$3.1415rin]

dynamic cast would cast it, yes, but I want the name of it.

I could of course create a virtual function returning the name, or a member variable being updated. that could of course be optimized by some preprocessor stuff to have less to write. but that's all stuff i'd call too much effort

[Rick]

Originally Posted by @$3.1415rin

dynamic cast would cast it, yes, but I want the name of it.

I could of course create a virtual function returning the name, or a member variable being updated. that could of course be optimized by some preprocessor stuff to have less to write. but that's all stuff i'd call too much effort

Well...with dynamic_cast you can see if class X is from type Y. If its not it will return NULL.
Although I'm not sure if it will work on base classes...

I think the best way is(like sfx1999 said) to make a way to 'identify' each class, since dynamic_cast isn't very efficient I believe.

[sfx1999]

char g_mainclassname[] = "mainclass";
char g_derivedclassname[] = "derived class";

class mainclass
{
  mainclass()
  {
	name = g_mainclassname;
  };
  public:
	char *identify(){return name};
  protected:
	char *name;
};

class derivedclass:public mainclass
{
  derivedclass{ name = g_derivedclassname };
};

[Whistler]

you can also use #define to avoid typing the get class name function for each class:

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.p....1&view=markup

[sfx1999]

Whistler, I think what he means is that he wants the base class to be able to find out what the derived class is. Like this:

CBaseClass *instance = new CDerivedClass;
instance.identify();

If you use your method, wouldn't it always return the main class's name?

[sfx1999]

I just realized something. My method might not work either. The main class's constructor might override the derived one's. You would need a hack to check if the value was set.

[Whistler]

Originally Posted by sfx1999

Whistler, I think what he means is that he wants the base class to be able to find out what the derived class is. Like this:

CBaseClass *instance = new CDerivedClass;
instance.identify();

If you use your method, wouldn't it always return the main class's name?

the main class's "GetDescription()" is virtual, so it should return the derived class's name.