Walter,

>> What you do there is casting, and this indeed is a feature found in
>> strict type languages. I was refering to constructs where strong typing >> is used to validate the type where a parameter might be of unknown class.
>> For flexible and optional parameters in functions you've got to use
>> overloading in C++.

C++ allows you to determine type using RTTI.

#include <iostream>
#include <typeinfo.h>

class MyBase {
public:
   virtual void myfunc() {}
};

class AnotherClass : public MyBase {};

using namespace std;

int main()
{
   AnotherClass* pAnother = new AnotherClass;
   MyBase* pMyBase = pAnother;

   cout << typeid(pMyBase).name()   << endl;      
   cout << typeid(*pMyBase).name()  << endl;   
   cout << typeid(pAnother).name()  << endl;   
   cout << typeid(*pAnother).name() << endl;   

   delete pAnother;
}

For flexible parameters you can use void or universal pointers which is quite a common approach in the Win32 API. You don't have to use overloading and can still determine type information.

Regards
Neil