int main() { doSomething(something); } string doSomething(Thing *x); Here, doSomething is a function and Thing is a class. Now, I also have another inherited class called subThing, and I also want to doSomething to a pointer of subThing.
What do you call the concept of using pointers to inherited classes? I am asking this so that I can research more on this topic.
Look up “Polymorphism”.
When subThing is derived from Thing, an instance of subThing is also an instance of Thing, so a subThing* pointer can be used anywhere a Thing* pointer can be used. Same thing with subThing& and Thing& references. Just watch out for “Object Slicing”. Polymorphic access to an object only works when accessing the object via a pointer or reference.
polymorphismis the idea that pointer's type may not exactly match the type of the thing it is pointing at.