Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Virtual Destructors?
Message-ID: <8590@alice.UUCP>
Date: 23 Dec 88 13:53:12 GMT
References: <5568@cbmvax.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 30

In article <5568@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes:
> I'm pretty new to this C++ game, but I've already run into something that
> doesn't make sense.  Perhaps this is already fixed -- I'm using Lattice 
> C++ V1.00 on the Amiga, which is based on cfront V1.1a.  In any case, I
> can't figure out why in the world destructors aren't virtual.

If you want a destructor to be virtual, make it virtual:

	class A {
	public:
		A();
		virtual ~A();
		// and so on
	};

Be aware that there is a fairly widespread bug that causes virtual
destructors not to work quite right unless all derived classes have
explicit destructors, even if the destructors are empty.  So:

	class B: public A {
	public:
		// stuff
		~B() { }		// empty destructor
		// other stuff
	};

But aside from that, virtual destructors work just fine.
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@europa.att.com