Question

I have a base class MyBase that contains a pure virtual function:

void PrintStartMessage() = 0

I want each derived class to call it in their constructor

then I put it in base class(MyBase) constructor

 class MyBase
 {
 public:

      virtual void PrintStartMessage() =0;
      MyBase()
      {
           PrintStartMessage();
      }

 };

 class Derived:public MyBase
 {     

 public:
      void  PrintStartMessage(){

      }
 };

void main()
 {
      Derived derived;
 }

but I get a linker error.

 this is error message : 

 1>------ Build started: Project: s1, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
 1>Compiling...
 1>s1.cpp
 1>Linking...
 1>s1.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual void __thiscall MyBase::PrintStartMessage(void)" (?PrintStartMessage@MyBase@@UAEXXZ) referenced in function "public: __thiscall MyBase::MyBase(void)" (??0MyBase@@QAE@XZ)
 1>C:\Users\Shmuelian\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\s1\Debug\s1.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals
 1>s1 - 2 error(s), 0 warning(s)

I want force to all derived classes to…

A- implement it

B- call it in their constructor 

How I must do it?

Answer 1

There are many articles that explain why you should never call virtual functions in constructor and destructor in C++. Take a look here and here for details what happens behind the scene during such calls.

In short, objects are constructed from the base up to the derived. So when you try to call a virtual function from the base class constructor, overriding from derived classes hasn’t yet happened because the derived constructors haven’t been called yet.