Unsafe Reverse Polymorphism in C++

Casts are dangerous things in C++. Besides the slicing problem, values do not always know their actual value, and thus a cast transformation may not be valid, but this invalidity will not be caught by the C++ run-time system. Unlike Java, the conversion is performed without a run-time check.

[audio] [real] Text to accompany slide20, in Chapter 12 of An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming