Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++, 2nd Ed Contents | Prev | Next

Upcasting

In the last chapter you saw how an object can be used as its own type or as an object of its base type. In addition, it can be manipulated through an address of the base type. Taking the address of an object (either a pointer or a reference) and treating it as the address of the base type is called upcasting because of the way inheritance trees are drawn with the base class at the top.

You also saw a problem arise, which is embodied in the following code: 

//: C15:Wind2.cpp
// Inheritance & upcasting
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
enum note { middleC, Csharp, Cflat }; // Etc.

class Instrument {
public:
  void play(note) const {
    cout << "Instrument::play" << endl;
  }
};

// Wind objects are Instruments
// because they have the same interface:
class Wind : public Instrument {
public:
  // Redefine interface function:
  void play(note) const {
    cout << "Wind::play" << endl;
  }
};

void tune(Instrument& i) {
  // ...
  i.play(middleC);
}

int main() {
  Wind flute;
  tune(flute); // Upcasting
} ///:~

The function tune( ) accepts (by reference) an Instrument, but also without complaint anything derived from Instrument. In main( ), you can see this happening as a Wind object is passed to tune( ), with no cast necessary. This is acceptable; the interface in Instrument must exist in Wind, because Wind is publicly inherited from Instrument. Upcasting from Wind to Instrument may “narrow” that interface, but it cannot make it any less than the full interface to Instrument.

The same arguments are true when dealing with pointers; the only difference is that the user must explicitly take the addresses of objects as they are passed into the function.

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