Can a derived class contain a vector of pointers to the parent class?

[ZhiYi]

Lets say I have a parent class called:

class Car
{
.....
};

Then there is a derived class called Toyota, which has a method returning a pointer to the parent class and a vector of pointers of the parent class.

class Toyota : class Car
{
public:

*Car GetCar(char* model);

private:
std::vector<Car*> cars;
};

Is this allowed?

I came across this programming question which requests for a class and a derived class where the derived class has a container of pointers to the parent class and individual elements of the container has to be accessed quickly.
(This question is neither a school assignment nor a test)

:s11:

[Lindley]

Sure it's allowed, but in that specific example I'd say it's a bit fishy.

[ZhiYi]

You mean the code looks strange? Are there better alternatives to the above code?

I do feel that the question is a little odd though.

[Lindley]

Well, I'd expect a Toyota object to represent a car which happens to be a Toyota. So I have my Toyota sitting in front of me, and I ask it to go get a different car based on model name? Does that make any sense?

[MrViggy]

Well, I'd expect a Toyota object to represent a car which happens to be a Toyota. So I have my Toyota sitting in front of me, and I ask it to go get a different car based on model name? Does that make any sense?

Sure! It had babies!

Viggy

[kempofighter]

I think that the composite pattern is an example of a pattern where you would have that kind of a situation where a particular instance of a derived class would have an array or list of pointers to other objects with a common base class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_pattern