Re: virtual and class size

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:33:35 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<56f7a0b2-2040-4d82-830c-134139f4dd3a@en1g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>
On Aug 24, 2:53 am, Robert Wessel <robertwess...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:29:32 -0700 (PDT), Christopher


    [Just nits...]

The vtable looks like what the compiler wants it to look like. A
common implementation is that the vtable is an array of pointers to
all of the virtual functions in a class,


Plus a pointer to the rest of the RTTI information. And
depending on the implementation, the pointer to the virtual
function might also contain a value used to fix up the this
pointer.

and one exists for the base
class and for every derived class.


Conceptually, there should be a vtable for the most derived
class, and for each of the base classes in the most derived
class, e.g.:

    struct B1 { virtual ~B1(); };
    struct B2 : B1 {};
    struct B3 { virtual ~B3(); };
    struct D : B2, B1 {};

Conceptually, there is a vtable for B1 in D, B2 in D, B3 in D
and D. The vtables B1 in D, B2 in D and B3 in D will be
different than those for B1, B2 and B3 as most derived classes.

Practically, the compiler will be able to merge some of these
(B1, B2 and D in most implementations.)

Virtual inheritance, of course, only makes the issue more
complex.

--
James Kanze

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