RTTI is the abbreviation
for runtime type information ("type information at run-time"), a term
used in software development and is part of various programming languages.
RTTI allows the
runtime to determine the type of an object. Thus, a program during its
execution to determine which concrete class an object belongs to which a
particular reference shows. Without this mechanism, "knew" the
program at this point is that a copy of any class is referenced, which is
derived from the base class. With this mechanism, it "knows" what
class belongs the referenced object.
While RTTI is a
very simple mechanism, which typically provides only the name of the concrete
class, there are more modern programming languages in the mechanism of
reflection, and it also allows for information about other properties of a
class at runtime to determine, for example, the names signatures of its
methods.
Example
So be example a
reference to a copy of the base class "business partner" given by the
two concrete subclasses "customer" and "supplier" are
defined. With type information at run time, the program can find out whether a
particular business partner is a customer or a supplier.
Features of RTTI:-
- In Java, the type information is provided at run-time by using the "getClass" which is a reference to a so-called class object back that knows including the name of the concrete class.
- Object Pascal is one of the is operator is available. You can also query Class Info, Class Type and Class name of an object.
