Re: Confusion about inheritance and the allocating memory via new

From:
 Axter <google@axter.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:46:31 -0700
Message-ID:
<1186717591.731113.29330@e16g2000pri.googlegroups.com>
On Jul 29, 2:26 pm, tharringto...@netscape.net wrote:

I am compiling the following code, main.cpp, as follows:
gcc main.cpp

I get the following compile error:
main.cpp: In function `int main()':
main.cpp:28: no matching function for call to `CPolygon::area()'

The code is listed below:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class CPolygon {
  public:
    virtual void set_values (int a, int b) { width=a; height=b; };

  protected:
    int width, height;
  };

class CRectangle: public CPolygon {
  public:
    int area () { return (width * height); };
  };

int main ()
{
 CPolygon * ppoly1 = new CRectangle;
 ppoly1->set_values (4,5);
 cout << ppoly1->area() << endl;
 return 0;

}

Why does this not compile?


Because you're using a base class pointer, and the base class pointer
knows nothing about a function that is unique to the derived class.
Any function you access in the derived class through the base class
pointer has to be a virtual function declared in the base class.

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