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From: bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: virtual static class functions
Message-ID: <2380@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: 14 Mar 90 21:06:37 GMT
References: <38579@cornell.UUCP>
Reply-To: bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation; Redmond, WA
Lines: 9

In article <38579@cornell.UUCP> deb@svax.cs.cornell.edu (David Baraff) writes:
<Why can't static class functions be virtual? That is,
<is there some reason why allowing static virtual class functions
<would be bad? I can't see that the implementation would pose
<any problems.

The virtual table is found through the this pointer. Static members, by
definition, aren't invoked for a specific instance of a class, so there
is no this pointer, and no way to get to the virtual table.