How to delete an object of a polymorphic class type that has no virtual destructor

Question

I am getting the following error when I try to compile some code from a Third-party SDK.

*Description    Resource    Path    Location    Type
deleting object of          


        

Answer 1

Bad news, I am afraid. You should not use that class as a base class. Too many constraints and pitfalls. You might get away with it, but why risk it? File a bug report with the library vendor.

If you do not need polymorphic pointers, include an object of that type in your class, and delegate the member functions you wanted to inherit.

class my_class {
private:
    evil_class evil;
public:
    virtual ~my_class() {/* stuff */}
    virtual int member() { return evil.member(); }
};