How to Inherit Properly

Question

Hi,
I have a probably dumb question about inheritance that I was hoping you could help me with.
I've got a base class MediaEvent with 2 sub classes MyEvent and MyShot that extend the base class. The sub classes have a few specialised methods each that aren't in the base class.
In another class (Example) I want to create one of the subClasses depending on a variable.
Pretty much I want to know if it's possible to use the sub-class methods if the object is declared as the base class?
The codes something like this:
public class Example
MediaEvent mediaEvent;
Example(int x)
if(x == 1)
mediaEvent = new MyEvent();
else
mediaEvent = new MyShot();
//Then in a different method altogether, I want to call a few methods from the mediaEvent base and depending on whether the variable was a 1 or not, a few methods from MyShot or MyEvent. i.e:
public void ExampleMethod2()
//call mediaEvent methods
//call MyShot or MyEvent methods
The problem is that since the global variable is of type MediaEvent, I can't access the sub-Classes methods. I have to create the subClass object in the constructor and use it in a different method so mediaEvent has to be a global variable.
Is there an easy way that I can overcome this problem or should I just have 2 different types of mediaEvent declared as the global variable and use an if within ExampleMethod2?
Sorry if this doesn't make any sense!
Andy

Answer 1

Thanks all.
After a few hours of messing about with it I decided
to do it in a different way with hopefully a better
design.
CheersGood luck - here are some other good resources:
Object-Oriented Programming Concepts
Object-oriented language basics
Don't Fear the OOP