C++ Inheritance Enum

Question

In C++ I have a base class A for example which looks like this:

class A {
    enum type {B, C, D, E};
    ....
    ....
}

For each enumerated type I have another class which is derived from the base A.
For example I have one class like this:

class B : public A {
    int x;
    ....
    ....
};

My question is: With an A object and from it for which I know that is type B so it corresponds to class B is it possible to have access to variable x for example and if yes how? I know that it is a bit tricky to gain access to derived class from base but I suppose that is something different not like this.

Answer 1

If you have an A *a or A &a and know for certain that it actually points/refers to an object of type B , you can use a cast:

A *a = ...;
B *b = static_cast<B*>(a);

or

A &a = ...;
B &b = static_cast<B&>(a);