I have a factory method class that generates "Items" and returns a pointer to the Item that it creates.

I have derived classes of Item. For example, Item can be a "weapon" "consumable" or "armor."

I need to detect which type of Item is created so that I can properly cast the Item to that type. I did some test lines and it looks like it's doing what I want, except for adding a number associated with the type.

Example:

I had the line:

cout << "Type Created: " << typeid(pItem).name() << endl;

Which return the base class Item, but it would display: "4Item"

I then changed that to:

cout << "Type Created: " << typeid(*pItem).name() << endl;

Which would give me the correct derived type, but also throw in that number. So I get something like "5Armor"

Why did pItem return the base class? And why does it return an int with the type? How can I remove the int?

A solution that does what I want - In a "cheating" kind of way:

            string type;
            string returnedType = typeid(*pItem1).name();
            for (int i=1; i < returnedType.length(); i++){
                    type.push_back(returnedType[i]);
            }
            cout << "type: " << type << endl;

Thanks

c++ casting typeid
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