From: rz0 [mailto:rz0@yahoo.com] Hi Bjorn

Thank you very much for the reply.

Unfortunately these classes are provided to me and as part of the requirements, I must be able to work with them. In re-thinking the problem, it seems that I'm in desperate need of a polymorphic container - i.e.:

Does boost have any polymorphic containers?

Thanks very much in advance.

I don't think that polymorphism is the cure - you'll always need to downcast the pointer as the signatures differ. However, there is support in Boost for what you're trying to do - through boost::any. Like I said before, the solution will not be very clean, but it will work. The code snippet below seems to do what you're asking for: #include <iostream> #include <algorithm> #include <vector> #include <Boost\Any.hpp> class A { public: virtual void func1() { std::cout << "A::func1()\n"; }; }; class B : public A { public: void func1() { std::cout << "B::func1()\n"; }; void funcB() { std::cout << "B::funcB()\n"; }; }; class C : public A { public: void func1() { std::cout << "C::func1()\n"; }; void funcC() { std::cout << "C::funcC()\n"; }; }; typedef std::vector<boost::any> AnyVector; void DoStuffWithAny(boost::any& a) { // Try with a B if ( B* pB = boost::any_cast<B>(&a) ) { pB->func1(); pB->funcB(); } // Try with a C else if ( C* pC = boost::any_cast<C>(&a) ) { pC->func1(); pC->funcC(); } // Try with an A else if ( A* pA = boost::any_cast<A>(&a) ) { pA->func1(); } } void DoStuffWithAnyPointer(boost::any& a) { // Try with a B if ( B** ppB = boost::any_cast<B*>(&a) ) { (*ppB)->func1(); (*ppB)->funcB(); } // Try with a C else if ( C** ppC = boost::any_cast<C*>(&a) ) { (*ppC)->func1(); (*ppC)->funcC(); } // Try with an A else if ( A** ppA = boost::any_cast<A*>(&a) ) { (*ppA)->func1(); } } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { AnyVector aVector; A a; B b; C c; aVector.push_back(a); aVector.push_back(b); aVector.push_back(c); // Do interesting things std::for_each(aVector.begin(), aVector.end(), DoStuffWithAny); AnyVector anotherVector; anotherVector.push_back(new A); anotherVector.push_back(new B); anotherVector.push_back(new C); // Do interesting things std::for_each(anotherVector.begin(), anotherVector.end(), DoStuffWithAnyPointer); return 0; } Another approach would be to provide adapters, but I'm guessing that wouldn't be worth the trouble. HTH, Bjorn Karlsson [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]