Is it possible to create an instance of a class within the same class?

Question

Say I have a class:

class Foo{
public:

    Foo(){
    }

    //Is it possible to create a function like this:
    virtual Foo* createOb(){
       //Should create a new Foo,Bar or Fiz, depending on the actual object type.
    }
}

class Bar: public Foo{
public:

    Bar(){
    }
}

class Fiz: public Foo{
public:

    Fiz(){
    }
}

Is it possible to have a method createOb() in the base class, so when createOb() is called on an instance of one of the derived classes, that an instance of the derived class is created ?

Answer 1

Yes, it can be done, using CRTP.

Bu first, returning a raw pointer obtained from new is very dangerous. In c++ raw pointers should be used only when they do not have ownership of the pointed object. So I took the liberty to use unique_ptr:

struct Base {
  virtual auto create_obj() -> std::unique_ptr<Base>
  {
    return std::unique_ptr<Base>{};
  }
};

// abstract works too:
struct Base {
  virtual auto create_obj() -> std::unique_ptr<Base> = 0;
};

template <class Derived>
struct Base_crtp : Base {
  auto create_obj() -> std::unique_ptr<Base> override /* final */
  {
    return std::unique_ptr<Base>{new Derived{}};
  }
};

struct D1 : Base_crtp<D1>
{
};

struct D2 : Base_crtp<D2>
{
};

And then:

auto b1 = std::unique_ptr<Base>{new D1{}};
auto b2 = std::unique_ptr<Base>{new D2{}};

auto new_d1 = b1->create_obj();
auto new_d2 = b2->create_obj();