Determining if a Class is .... ?

[Kristofer Pettijohn]

Greetings,

I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to determine whether a class
has the traits of another class...

For example...

I have a class called Square, which inherits Cube, which inherits Shape ..

I am writing another class that will get passed a class as a template
parameter...

MyNewClass<Square> object;

Inside of MyNewClass, is there a way to determine if the class passed to
it through the template is an object with the traits of Shape? I'd HOPE
to catch it at Compile-time, but run-time (using assert() perhaps?) would
be fine, too.

I hope I am asking this right..'tis a bit late.

Thanks for any help or pointers!

Kristofer

[John Harrison]

"Kristofer Pettijohn" <kr*******@cybernetik.net> wrote in message
news:3f***********************@newsreader.cybernet ik.net...

Greetings,

I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to determine whether a class
has the traits of another class...

For example...

I have a class called Square, which inherits Cube, which inherits Shape ..

I am writing another class that will get passed a class as a template
parameter...

MyNewClass<Square> object;

Inside of MyNewClass, is there a way to determine if the class passed to
it through the template is an object with the traits of Shape? I'd HOPE
to catch it at Compile-time, but run-time (using assert() perhaps?) would
be fine, too.

I hope I am asking this right..'tis a bit late.

Thanks for any help or pointers!

Kristofer

Boost type_traits library can do this
http://www.boost.org/libs/type_traits/index.htm

You also might want to check out 'Modern C++ Design' by Andrei Alexandrescu
where this and a lot more else besides is discussed.

john