SystemVerilog OOP Mastery · All levels

Polymorphism and Dispatch Semantics: Interview Questions

Interview Questions for Polymorphism and Dispatch Semantics.

Interview questions

Q1. What two conditions must hold for polymorphism to change runtime behavior in SV?

Answer: A base handle must reference a derived object, and the called method must be virtual in the base declaration.

Q2. Why is $cast preferred over direct assignment for downcast?

Answer: $cast provides explicit runtime type checking and a success/fail result, so code can branch safely instead of dereferencing an invalid derived handle.

Q3. How does polymorphism help UVM architecture quality?

Answer: It lets framework and infrastructure code stay generic while concrete behavior changes via factory-selected derived classes, reducing protocol-specific duplication.

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