Related Blog Items

• What is allowed in C, but not in C++?
• Implicit Type Conversions - part 2
• Advanced Test in C: The 0x0A Best Questions for C Programmers
• Differences between new, malloc; delete, free
• C++ Basics Tutorial - Lesson 7

To calculate the size of an object, we need the type information.
This type information is available only at compile time.  At the
end of the compilation phase, the resulting object code doesn’t
have (or not required to have) the type information.

Of course, type information can be stored to access it at run-time,
but this results in bigger object code and less performance.  And
most of the time, we don’t need it.

All the runtime environments that support run time type
identification (RTTI) will retain type information even after
compilation phase.  And if, something can be done in compilation
time itself, why do it at run time?

More importantly, HOW can it be a function when the operand is a
type, not an expression. Even expressions subject to integral
promotion are problematic.

Popularity: 7%

You need to log on to convert this article into PDF

Related Blog Items

• What is allowed in C, but not in C++?
• Implicit Type Conversions - part 2
• Advanced Test in C: The 0x0A Best Questions for C Programmers
• Differences between new, malloc; delete, free
• C++ Basics Tutorial - Lesson 7

This entry was written by Vijay Zanvar and posted on April 13, 2007 at 6:09 pm and filed under C Tidbits, C++ Tidbits. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.