Virtual Trouble

After many years of working in plain C, I'm back to writing C++. I feel like an unfrozen caveman, confused by the flashing lights of the big city. Here is something I ran into recently.

#include <stdio.h>

class BaseClass {
 public:
  BaseClass() { InitName(); }
  virtual void InitName() { name_ = "BaseClass"; }
  char *name_;
};

class SubClass : public BaseClass {
 public:
  virtual void InitName() { name_ = "SubClass"; }
};

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  BaseClass base;
  SubClass sub;

  printf("BaseClass name_ = %s\n", base.name_);
  printf("SubClass  name_ = %s\n", sub.name_);
}

A base class provides a virtual InitName() method, and calls it from the constructor. A subclass overrides InitName(), yet the overridden method is not called during construction. The BaseClass InitName() is used instead.

$ ./a.out
BaseClass name_ = BaseClass
SubClass  name_ = BaseClass

Why?

A Maze of Twisty Little Passages

Objects are constructed from the most basic class first. When the BaseClass() constructor runs, the SubClass methods and member variables have not yet been initialized. The object is a BaseClass object at that point. When BaseClass::BaseClass() returns, the object will be remarked as a SubClass object, and only then will its overridden methods actually do anything. Destructors work similarly. The outermost derived class is destroyed first, and by the time BaseClass::~BaseClass() runs the object will be of BaseClass type. Any virtual methods called from ~BaseClass() will call the BaseClass definition.

Scott Meyers' Effective C++, 3rd Edition (*) devotes a chapter to this topic, with considerably more detail. That chapter happens to be available online in an excerpt by the publisher.

For my specific issue, my object already had an Init() method to be called after object construction. It was straightforward to move the functionality from the constructor to Init(), with some checks to make it do something sensible if the caller neglects to call Init().

(*) - affiliate link