Polymorphism in C++
Hello people, today we are going to read about one of the pillar of Object-Oriented Programming Language, i.e, Polymorphism.
What is Polymorphism?
Polymorphism, a Greek term, means the ability to take more than one form. An operation may exhibit different behaviours in different instances. The behaviour depends upon the types of data used in the operation. In simple words, we can define polymorphism as the ability of a message to be displayed in more than one form.
In C++, polymorphism is mainly of
two types :
1. Compile
Time Polymorphism
2. Run Time
Polymorphism
Compile
time polymorphism
This type of polymorphism is achieved by using the function
overloading and operator overloading.
1.
Function
Overloading –
When there are multiple functions with similar name
but different parameters then these functions are said to be overloaded.
Functions can be overloaded by changing the types of arguments or by changing
the number of arguments.
For better understanding look at the code below:
OUTPUT:
Coding Winds works in 3 languages
Coding Winds works in three languages
Coding Winds works in 3 languages
Thanks.
2.
Operator
Overloading –
Operator overloading is one of the exciting features of C++ language.
Operator overloading provides us the option of creating the definition of most
of the C++ operators. We can overload almost every operator of C++ except of
the following:
1. Class
member access operators (., .*)
2. Scope resolution
operators (::)
3. Size
operator (sizeof)
4. Conditional
operator (?:)
For better understanding look at the given below code :
OUTPUT:
3 + i6
Run time
polymorphism
This type of polymorphism is achieved by using the function
overriding –
1.
Function
Overriding –
Function Overriding comes into action when the derived class
has a definition of the member function of base class.
When we use the same function name in both the base and
derived classes, the function in base class is declared as virtual using the
keyword virtual preceding it’s
normal declaration. When a function is made virtual, C++ determines which
function to be used at the runtime based on the type of object pointed to by
the base pointer, rather than the type of pointer. Thus, by making the base
pointer to point to different objects, we can execute different versions of the
virtual function.
OUTPUT:
Base Display
Base Show
Base Display
Derived Show
