"The (B)Leading Edge"
Faking (and Exploring) Run Time Type Information
©C++ Report (Sept. 1997)

Abstract
This column presents an overview of the RTTI mechanism in Standard C++ and then shows how to do a pretty good job of faking it on those C++ implementations that do not yet support RTTI. The column wraps up with some observations about the expected efficiency of the real RTTI mechanism.