you should define a destructor that virtual but not abstract.

  class Actor{...    virtual ~Actor();...private:    char* szName;...}Actor::~Actor(){    delete[] szName;}  

a simple rule from my c++ gourou

"Define a virtual destructor unless you never want anyone to derive from your class"

A class with only a pure destructor and no other members means the class itself cannot be instantiated, all derived class destructors are virtual, and a derived class must provide a destructor. I don''t think there''s anything more to read into it.

same thing can be done with protected constructor, so no real reason for it

To add a little to what spillsome said, all classes that are derived from should have the destructor declared virtual. It''s usually safer to declare it virtual if you are not sure. Only have a non-virtual constructor if you know exactly why. I believe Scott Meyers has as one of his rules that you shouldn''t inherit from concrete classes - although now I''m trying to recall if a derived class will automatically have a virtual destructor if the base class does. Maybe this is one of those implementation-dependent things.

Speaking of which, it''s the implementation-dependent aspect of this issue that is why you should explicitly declare the destructor virtual. This was discussed in C/C++ Users'' Journal, February 2001 in an article by Andrew Koenig. I believe it was taken from his book Accelerated C++. It also came up again in Sutter''s Mill in the September 2001 issue, and I assume it would be in his books as well (Exceptional C++ and/or More Exceptional C++).

I reccomend CUJ to anyone who programs in C or C++. It''s full of wholesome goodness Well, at least, there''s an awful lot that can be learned from reading it, even the articles you think won''t interest you.

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