Alright, another nüb question to fill the chasms in Drakkcon''s amnesiac (sp?) brain! I understand polymorphism. Well, okay - I understand that if a class inherits a function from another class you must use the virtual keyword for the child class or you get wrong answers (I''m not interested in theory). But is it neccisary for for me to use virtual for the parent class? Why is this even an issue anyway!? I told the compiler:

MyClass foo
foo.docrap();
foo.object.docrap();
 

Why isn''t it totally obvious that I''m referring to object? Would this be so hard to implement? Note to C# fanatics: I''m aware that your language does not likely have this problem. The true general first seeks victory, then seeks battle - Sun Tzu

What exactly are you trying to acheive here? Call the base class implementation? What is foo deriving from?
The following example might help you:

class foo {public:    virtual void docrap() {printf("foo");}    virtual void docrap2() {printf("foo");}};class object : public foo {public:    virtual void docrap() {printf("object");}    virtual void docrap2() {foo::docrap2();}}foo *p = new object();foo o = *p;  // This is an illegal statementp->docrap();    // Will print "object", even though p is a pointer to foop->docrap2();   // Will print "foo", because object''s implementation calls that of the base class 

There is some good info on virtual members here:
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/tut4-4.html

- Xavier

I am not sure whether you truely understand what polymorphism is. However, one thing that I am sure is that you don''t understand what the ''virtual'' keyword is used for. Virtual is only used for the upper class (parent), generally not on child (but you could though).

Anyway, you should read some more on virtual to get a better understanding. As for your code, I am not sure what you''re trying to show there.

And that solves the problem. Thank you. True, I don't understand. When a book devotes a giant chapter, so boring that my eyes glaze over, to a problem that can be solved with one keyword; i tend to lose focus. thanks for the fix though.

EDIT: @ johnson 5001


[edited by - Drakkcon on May 6, 2004 11:02:33 PM]