parent and sub class usage

[mzimmers]

I have a need for two very similar object classes. One will have an additional private member, and some of its routines will be a bit different.

I'm pretty inexperienced with using inheritance, so my question is: is it considered OK practice to use both the parent class and the sub class for creating objects? Or, should I have two sub-classes and not use the parent class?

If it makes a difference, these objects will go into a vector. It was suggested to me in another thread that I store pointers in the vector, rather than the objects, so I'll probably do that.

Thanks.

[webJose]

You can only achieve polymorphism if you use pointers or references, so yes, use a vector of pointers. References are only writable at construction so their uses are limited.

It is OK if you also use the parent class, no need for an extra subclass unless you foresee something, like a future need to create more subclasses, and maybe you think it is safer to have a more abstract base that is more configurable in the future.