Question

When I declare a base class, should I declare all the functions in it as virtual, or should I have a set of virtual functions and a set of non-virtual functions which I am sure are not going to be inherited?

Answer 1

A function only needs to be virtual iff a derived class will implement that function in a different way.

For example:

class Base {
public:
  void setI (int i)  // No need for it to be virtual
  {
    m_i = i;
  }

  virtual ~Base () {}         // Almost always a good idea

  virtual bool isDerived1 ()  // Is overridden - so make it virtual
  {
    return false;
  }

private:
  int m_i;
};

class Derived1 : public Base {
public:
  virtual ~Derived () {}

  virtual bool isDerived1 ()  // Is overridden - so make it virtual
  {
    return true;
  }
};

As a result, I would error the side of not having anything virtual unless you know in advance that you intend to override it or until you discover that you require the behaviour. The only exception to this is the destructor, for which its almost always the case that you want it to be virtual in a base class.