How to use the vtable to determine class type
- by Alex Silverman
I was recently on an interview for a position where C/C++ is the primary language and during one question I was told that it's possible to use the vtable to determine which class in a hierarchy a base pointer actually stores.
So if, for example you have
class A
{
public:
A() {}
virtual ~A() {}
virtual void method1() {}
};
class B : public A
{
public:
B() {}
virtual ~B() {}
virtual void method1() {}
};
and you instantiate A * pFoo = new B(), is it indeed possible to use the vtable to determine whether pFoo contains a pointer to an instance of A or B?
