Re: multimap and abstract class

From:
Sam <sam@email-scan.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:17:22 -0500
Message-ID:
<cone.1250806642.178717.15888.500@commodore.email-scan.com>
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Barry writes:

On 20 Aug, 13:12, Sam <s...@email-scan.com> wrote:

Barry writes:

Hi,

I have an abstract class called "Event" and a number of classes whic=

h

inherit from it, including "NoteOn" and "NoteOff".

I am now attempting to create a multimap called EventList, as follow=

s

-

#ifndef EVENT_LIST_H

#include <map>
#include "Event.h"

class EventList : public std::multimap<double,Event>
{
public:
     EventList(void);
     virtual ~EventList(void);
};

#endif

#ifndef EVENT_H

class Event
{
public:
     Event(void);
     virtual void dummy() = 0;
     virtual ~Event(void);
};

#endif

but this isn't allowed according to my compiler because 'Event' :
cannot instantiate abstract class.

I don't understand why I get this fail since I haven't even created =

a

EventList object yet.


Because the compiler evaluates the template definition, and finds out =

that

some of the template functions end up instantiating an abstract class,
which, of course, is an error.

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Thanks for the reply. I wish for my EventList class to store objects
of type NoteOn and NoteOff - not Event objects (which is abstract
anyway). But does that mean that I will have to make Event a non-
abstract class in order to create a multimap containing NoteOn and
NoteOff objects?


No. It means that if a multimap contains an Event, it can only contain an
Event, not any arbitrary subclass of Event. Simpler example:

class A {

public:
   int a;
};

class B : public A {

public:
   int b;
};

std::list<A> alist;

alist contains A objects. If you try to add a B object to alist, only its =
A
superclass gets added to the list:

B binstance;

binstance.a=1;
binstance.b=2;

alist.push_back(binstance);

Your alist gets an instance of A, not B.

Same thing with multimap.

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