C++ Passing a class as a parameter

Question

I'm wondering if it's possible to pass a class as a parameter in c++. Not passing a Class Object, but the class itself which would allow me to use this class like this.

void MyFunction(ClassParam mClass) {     mClass *tmp = new mClass(); } 

The above is not real code, but it hopefully explains what I'm trying to do in an example.

Answer 1

You can use templates to accomplish something similar (but not exactly that):

template<class T> void MyFunction() {     T *tmp = new T(); } 

and call it with MyFunction<MyClassName>().

Note that this way, you can't use a "variable" in place of T. It should be known at compile time.

Answer 2

C++ does not store meta data about classes as other languages do. Assuming that you always use a class with a parameterless constructor, you can use templates to achieve the same thing:

template <typename T> void MyFunction() {     T* p = new T; }