Run-time type information

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In computer programming, run-time type information or run-time type identification (RTTI) refers to a C++ mechanism that exposes information about an object's data type at runtime. Run-time type information can apply to simple data types, such as integers and characters, or to generic types. This is a C++ specialization of a more general concept called type introspection. Similar mechanisms are also known in other programming languages, such as Object Pascal (Delphi).

In the original C++ design, Bjarne Stroustrup did not include run-time type information, because he thought this mechanism was often misused.

Video Run-time type information

Overview

C++ RTTI can be used to do safe typecasts, using the dynamic_cast<> operator, and to manipulate type information at run time, using the typeid operator and std::type_info class.

RTTI is available only for classes which are polymorphic, which means they have at least one virtual method. In practice, this is not a limitation because base classes must have a virtual destructor to allow objects of derived classes to perform proper cleanup if they are deleted from a base pointer.

RTTI is optional with some compilers; the programmer can choose at compile time whether to include the functionality. There may be a resource cost to making RTTI available even if a program does not use it.

Maps Run-time type information

typeid

The typeid keyword is used to determine the class of an object at run time. It returns a reference to std::type_info object, which exists until the end of the program. The use of typeid, in a non-polymorphic context, is often preferred over dynamic_cast<class_type> in situations where just the class information is needed, because typeid is a constant-time procedure, whereas dynamic_cast must traverse the class derivation lattice of its argument at runtime. Some aspects of the returned object are implementation-defined, such as std::type_info::name(), and cannot be relied on across compilers to be consistent.

Objects of class std::bad_typeid are thrown when the expression for typeid is the result of applying the unary * operator on a null pointer. Whether an exception is thrown for other null reference arguments is implementation-dependent. In other words, for the exception to be guaranteed, the expression must take the form typeid(*p) where p is any expression resulting in a null pointer.

Example

Output (exact output varies by system):

  Person  Employee  Person*  Employee  Employee  

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dynamic_cast and Java cast

The dynamic_cast operator in C++ is used for downcasting a reference or pointer to a more specific type in the class hierarchy. Unlike the static_cast, the target of the dynamic_cast must be a pointer or reference to class. Unlike static_cast and C-style typecast (where type check is made during compilation), a type safety check is performed at runtime. If the types are not compatible, an exception will be thrown (when dealing with references) or a null pointer will be returned (when dealing with pointers).

A Java typecast behaves similarly; if the object being cast is not actually an instance of the target type, and cannot be converted to one by a language-defined method, an instance of java.lang.ClassCastException will be thrown.

Example

Suppose some function takes an object of type A as its argument, and wishes to perform some additional operation if the object passed is an instance of B, a subclass of A. This can be accomplished using dynamic_cast as follows.

Console output:

  Method specific for B was invoked  Method specific for B was invoked  Exception std::bad_cast thrown.  Object is not of type B  

A similar version of my_function can be written with pointers instead of references:

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See also

• Template (C++)
• Reflection (computer science)

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References

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External links

• dynamic_cast operator at IBM Mac OS X Compilers
• dynamic_cast operator at MSDN

Source of the article : Wikipedia