Inheritance ISSUE PROBABLY EASY SOLUTION

[mrhanky]

hey guys quick question. I have a base class "baseballplayer". From there i have made a derived class "pitcher". The big honcho of the program is "PlayerDatabase" which is used to store all the baseballplayers. I want to access 'P_earnedRuns' from my Pitcher class and add up multiple P_earnedRuns from my PlayerDatabase class.. the question is how would i grab P_earnedRuns from a stored Pitcher object and lets say cout that from commented out area in my PlayerDatabase.cpp code..? THANKS!!

THIS IS PLAYERDATABASE.CPP
#include "PlayerDatabase.h"
#include "Pitcher.h"
#include "Hitter.h"

#include <iostream>
#include <conio.h>

using namespace std;

PlayerDatabase::PlayerDatabase()
{
team_count = 0;
P_or_H = ' ';
tot_earnedRuns = 0;

}
void PlayerDatabase::load_team(ifstream& input)
{
for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
input >> P_or_H;

if(P_or_H == 'P')
{
team[i] = new Pitcher;
team[i]->load_player(input);
}

else if(P_or_H == 'H')
{
team[i] = new Hitter;
team[i]->load_player(input);
}
else
cout << "This line does not specify as a Pitcher or Hitter.";

/* OR SHOULD I USE DYNAMIC_CAST TO FIND IT?????
pitcherPtr = dynamic_cast<Pitcher*>(team[i]);
if(pitcherPtr)
{
tot_earnedRuns = tot_earnedRuns + team[i]->P_earnedRuns;
}
*/
}
}
void PlayerDatabase::print_team()
{
for(int i = 3; i < 4; i++)
{
team[0]->print_player();
//cout << team[0]-> HOW WOULD I ACCESS P_earnedRuns FROM PITCHER CLASS???
}
}

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
AND MY PITCHER CLASS..
#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>
#include <fstream>
#include "Pitcher.h"

using namespace std;

Pitcher::Pitcher(string name, int height, int weight, char throws, int earnedRuns, float inningsPitched, const char THROWS_UNINITIALIZED)
: BaseballPlayer(name, height, weight)
{
P_throws = throws;
P_earnedRuns = earnedRuns;
P_inningsPitched = inningsPitched;

P_or_H = ' ';

}

void Pitcher::load_player(ifstream& input)
{
input >> playerName >> playerHeight >> playerWeight >> P_throws >> P_earnedRuns >> P_inningsPitched;
}

void Pitcher::print_player() const
{
cout << "Pitcher -" << endl
<< "Name: " << playerName << endl
<< "Height: " << playerHeight << " inches" << endl
<< "Weight: " << playerWeight << " pounds" << endl
<< "Throws: " << P_throws << endl
<< "Earned Runs: " << P_earnedRuns << endl
<< "Innings Pitched: " << P_inningsPitched << endl
<< "ERA: " << ERA() << endl;
}
float Pitcher::ERA() const
{
if(P_inningsPitched != 0)
return P_earnedRuns / P_inningsPitched * 9.0;
else
return 999.99;
}
//Pitcher::~BaseballPlayer(){}

[PanGalactic]

Why isn't "PitchingStats" just a member of "Player"? Either a player has pitched and has pitching stats, or they haven't and don't have any such stats. This maps well to a relational database where there would be a 1..[0..1] relationship between Player and PitchingStats tables.

Then you just do something like this:

if (player.hasPitchingStats())
{
   // compute ERA
}
else
{
    // ERA is undefined.
}

This is one case where I think inheritance may not be the most appropriate representation of the data. Whenever I get into a bind like this, it always serves me well to ask "is inheritance really appropriate here?" More often than not the answer is "no."