Question

Very new to c++ having trouble calling a function from another class.

Class B inherits from Class A, and I want class A to be able to call a function created in class B.

using namespace std;

class B;

class A 
{

public:

    void CallFunction ()
    {
        B b;
        b.bFunction();
    }

};

class B: public A
{
public:
    virtual void bFunction()
        {
            //stuff done here
        }

};

It all looks fine on screen (no obvious errors) but when I try to compile it i get an error C2079 ‘b’ uses undefined class B.

I’ve tried making them pointers/ friends but I’m getting the same error.

Answer 1

    void CallFunction ()
    {   // <----- At this point the compiler knows
        //        nothing about the members of B.
        B b;
        b.bFunction();
    }

This happens for the same reason that functions in C cannot call each other without at least one of them being declared as a function prototype.

To fix this issue we need to make sure both classes are declared before they are used. We separate the declaration from the definition. This MSDN article explains in more detail about the declarations and definitions.

class A
{
public:
    void CallFunction ();
};

class B: public A
{
public:
    virtual void bFunction()
    { ... }
};

void A::CallFunction ()
{
    B b;
    b.bFunction();
}