Polymorphic classes in templates

Question

Let's say we have a class hierarchy where we have a generic Animal class, which has several classes directly inherit from it (such as Dog, Cat, Horse, etc..).

When using templates on this inheritance hierarchy, is it legal to just use SomeTemplateClass<Animal> and then shove in Dogs and Cats and Horses into this templated object?

For example, assume we have a templated Stack class, where we want to host all sorts of animals. Can I simply state Stack<Animal> s; Dog d; s.push(d); Cat c; s.push(c);

Answer 1

Answer of your question if No. But you can use SomeTemplateClass<Animal*> and pass pointers of objects of derived classes to it.

For example, if you have a templated Stack class, where you want to host all sorts of animals. You can simply do following:

Stack<Animal*> s; 
Dog d; 
s.push(&d); 
Cat c; 
s.push(&c)