How to switch pointer value between parent and child?

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1

Hello! I have a function that switches between stances (Earth, Wind, Fire etc). To implement this I have a switch function that swaps the pointer value of ‘CurrentStance’ to the new stance. Here I state the parent/child relationship between the classes:

class UBaseStanceComponent : public UActorComponent;
class UAirStanceComponent : public UBaseStanceComponent;
// ...

class AMainCharacter : // ...
{
    UBaseStanceComponent* CurrentStance;
    UAirStanceComponent* AirStance;
   // ...
};

Now I assign the pointers to their respective objects:

CurrentStance = CreateDefaultSubobject<UBaseStanceComponent>(TEXT("Current Stance"));
AirStance = CreateDefaultSubobject<UAirStanceComponent>(TEXT("Air Stance"));

Finally we have the switching function that changes the pointer of CurrentStance to the new stance:

void AMainCharacter::ChangeStance(EStance Stance)
{
	switch(Stance)
	{
		case EStance::AirStance:
			CurrentStance = AirStance;
			break;

The penultimate line causes the following error:

Cannot assign to type 'UBaseStanceComponent*' from 'UAirStanceComponent*'

However surely this should be fine given Air inherits from UBaseStanceComponent? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

2

Hello! If you want to use CurrentStance for switching, you dont need this line

CurrentStance = CreateDefaultSubobject<UBaseStanceComponent>(TEXT("Current Stance"));

just set it to nullptr or default stance…

3

Thanks for the reply! However, I don’t think this is a solution, because say I do initalise CurrentStance to nullptr, when it comes to setting the pointer to Air I still have the same problem.

4

It seems like you should be able to. Is there a particular reason you don’t just

  Cast<UBaseStanceComponent>(Airstance)

?