How Can I Avoid Object Slicing When Using Inheritance with C Vectors?

Object Slicing and Polymorphism in Vector Containers

When dealing with inheritance in C , it is sometimes desirable to store instances of derived classes in containers such as vectors. However, the straightforward approach of using a vector to store base class objects can lead to object slicing, where derived class-specific data is lost.

Consider the following program:

class Base {
public:
    virtual void identify() {
        cout  vect;
    vect.push_back(derived);

    vect[0].identify();
    return 0;
}

The code creates a vector of Base objects and stores an instance of the Derived class. However, when calling the identify() method on the stored object, it prints "BASE" instead of "DERIVED." This is because object slicing occurs when the Derived object is assigned to the Base vector element, resulting in the loss of derived-specific data.

To prevent object slicing and preserve polymorphic behavior, the preferred solution is to use pointers to base class objects in the vector:

vector<base>

This ensures that the derived class-specific data remains intact. Additionally, to avoid manual memory management, smart pointers can be employed:

vector<:shared_ptr>></:shared_ptr>

Smart pointers ensure automatic memory management through RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization), making it a more robust and C -conforming approach.

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