I have few problems with my basic and would be thankful if someone can clear this.

• What does it mean when I say base *b = new derived; Why would one go for this? We very well separately can create objects for class base and class derived and then call the functions accordingly. I know that this base *b = new derived; is called as Object Slicing but why and when would one go for this? I know why it is not advisable to convert the base class object to derived class object (because base class is not aware of the derived class members and methods). I even read in other StackOverflow threads that if this is gonna be the case then we have to change/re-visit our design. I understand all that, however, I am just curious, Is there any way to do this?

  class base
  {
  public:
      void f(){cout << "In Base";}
  };
  
  
  class derived:public base
  {
  public:
      void f(){cout << "In Derived";}
  };
  
  
  int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
  {
      base b1, b2;
      derived d1, d2;
      b2 = d1;
      d2 = reinterpret_cast<derived*>(b1); //gives error C2440
      b1.f(); // Prints In Base
      d1.f(); // Prints In Derived
      b2.f(); // Prints In Base
      d1.base::f(); //Prints In Base
      d2.f();
      getch();
      return 0;
  }
  

  • In case of my above example, is there any way I could call the base class f() using derived class object? I used d1.base()::f() I just want to know if there any way without using scope resolution operator?

Thanks a lot for your time in helping me out!