This Week

This week we will look at, compare, and contrast two approaches to polymorphism in C++. We’ll look at runtime polymorphism, also known as dynamic polymorphism, through the use of inheritance to define sub-types with special behaviours. We’ll also discuss compile-time polymorphism, also known as static polymorphism, through the use of templates (and sometimes therefore referred to as template meta-programming) to define generic code which compiler can use to automatically generate specialised code for different types.

• Inheritance
  • Creating sub-types using inheritance
  • Overriding functions
  • Runtime polymorphism with virtual functions
  • Abstract classes for interfaces
• Templates
  • Function templates
  • Class templates
  • Operator & function overloading
  • Compiling templated code