Published Jul 19, 2019
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Let’s say you have these two classes:
class Animal {
public:
void eat(){
cout << "I am eating generic food.";
}
};
class Cat : public Animal {
public:
void eat(){
cout << "I am eating a rat.";
}
}
In your main function:
Animal* animal = new Animal;
Cat* cat = new Cat;
animal->eat(); // I'm eating generic food
cat->eat(); // I'm eating a rat
Let’s change it a little now so that eat() is called via an intermediate function
void func(Animal *xyz) {
xyz->eat();
}
Now our main function is:
Animal* animal = new Animal;
Cat* cat = new Cat;
func(animal); // I'm eating generic food
func(cat); // I'm eating generic food
The solution is to make eat() from the Animal class a virtual function.
references: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2391679/why-do-we-need-virtual-functions-in-c