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For this reason, calling virtual functions in constructors is generally discouraged. In C++, the "base" function is called. Specifically, the most derived function that is not more derived than the current constructor or destructor's class is called. [7]: §15.7.3 [8] [9] If that function is a pure virtual function, then undefined behavior occurs.
In computer programming, a virtual method table (VMT), virtual function table, virtual call table, dispatch table, vtable, or vftable is a mechanism used in a programming language to support dynamic dispatch (or run-time method binding).
To elaborate on the above example, consider a base class with no virtual functions. Whenever the base class calls another member function, it will always call its own base class functions. When we derive a class from this base class, we inherit all the member variables and member functions that were not overridden (no constructors or destructors).
Virtual inheritance is a C++ technique that ensures only one copy of a base class ' s member variables are inherited by grandchild derived classes. Without virtual inheritance, if two classes B and C inherit from a class A , and a class D inherits from both B and C , then D will contain two copies of A ' s member variables: one via B , and one ...
The default form of dispatch is static. To get dynamic dispatch the programmer must declare a method as virtual. C++ compilers typically implement dynamic dispatch with a data structure called a virtual function table (vtable) that defines the name-to-implementation mapping for a given class as a set of member function pointers. This is purely ...
Perhaps the most well-known example is C++, an object-oriented extension of the C programming language. Due to the design requirements to add the object-oriented paradigm on to an existing procedural language, message passing in C++ has some unique capabilities and terminologies. For example, in C++ a method is known as a member function.
In C++ implementations, this is commonly done using virtual function tables. If the object type is known, this may be bypassed by prepending a fully qualified class name before the function call, but in general calls to virtual functions are resolved at run time.
In C++, late binding (also called "dynamic binding") refers to what normally happens when the virtual keyword is used in a method's declaration. C++ then creates a so-called virtual table , which is a look-up table for such functions that will always be consulted when they are called.