In C++, RTTI (Run-time type information) is a mechanism that exposes information about an object’s data type at runtime and is available only for the classes which have at least one virtual function. It allows the type of an object to be determined during program execution
For example, dynamic_cast uses RTTI and following program fails with error “cannot dynamic_cast `b’ (of type `class B*’) to type `class D*’ (source type is not polymorphic) ” because there is no virtual function in the base class B.
// CPP program to illustrate
// Run Time Type Identification
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
class B { };
class D: public B {};
int main()
{
B *b = new D;
D *d = dynamic_cast<D*>(b);
if(d != NULL)
cout<<"works";
else
cout<<"cannot cast B* to D*";
getchar();
return 0;
}
Adding a virtual function to the base class B makes it working.
// CPP program to illustrate
// Run Time Type Identification
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
class B { virtual void fun() {} };
class D: public B { };
int main()
{
B *b = new D;
D *d = dynamic_cast<D*>(b);
if(d != NULL)
cout << "works";
else
cout << "cannot cast B* to D*";
getchar();
return 0;
}
Output :
works
