Shog9 wrote: or slugs to beer? Are you calling me a slug? :)

Keep it. The fact that it's there might be enough to tip somebody over into updating it onto XP/Vista. One of my articles arose from taking something that Marc had written and updating it to .NET 2. That doesn't downplay Marcs article in anyway, it just prompted me to go in another direction with it. Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before. My blog | My articles

The value-of pA->myType is the value-of pA->A::myType which has not been initialized. Some changes: class A {public: A(){/*myType = TYPEA;*/} ~A(){} TClassType myType;}; class B : public A {public: B(){ myType = TYPEB; } ~B(){} TClassType myType;}; class C : public A {public: C(){ myType = TYPEC; } ~C(){} int myType;}; A* pA; B* pB; C* pC; pA = myArray.GetAt(0); //LINE A pA = myArray.GetAt(1); //LINE B pB = (B*)pA; TClassType eAB = pB->myType; TClassType eAA = pB->A::myType; pA = myArray.GetAt(2); //LINE C pC = (C*)pA; TClassType eAC = TClassType)pC->myType; eAA = pC->A::myType; Results: TYPEB == pB->myType // B::myType 2 == pC->myType // C::myType, 2==TYPEC ? == pA->myType // A::myType when uninitialized TYPEA == pA->myType // A::myType when initializion is uncommented Comments: Data-members are hidden or overridden. "Plain" function-members are hidden or overridden. Virtual function-members are virtual (behavior you expected). Hiding/overriding depends on NAME not type (see TClassType versus int). More comments: Such hiding is probably most often not done on purpose. Therefore Hiding data-members is 99.9999% (sure to result in) a bug. Hiding function-members is 99% a bug.