Why do we need virtual functions in C++?

Question

I\'m learning C++ and I\'m just getting into virtual functions.

From what I\'ve read (in the book and online), virtual functions are functions in the base class that

Answer 1

Here is how I understood not just what virtual functions are, but why they're required:

Let's say you have these two classes:

class Animal
{
    public:
        void eat() { std::cout << "I'm eating generic food."; }
};

class Cat : public Animal
{
    public:
        void eat() { std::cout << "I'm eating a rat."; }
};

In your main function:

Animal *animal = new Animal;
Cat *cat = new Cat;

animal->eat(); // Outputs: "I'm eating generic food."
cat->eat();    // Outputs: "I'm eating a rat."

So far so good, right? Animals eat generic food, cats eat rats, all without virtual.

Let's change it a little now so that eat() is called via an intermediate function (a trivial function just for this example):

// This can go at the top of the main.cpp file
void func(Animal *xyz) { xyz->eat(); }

Now our main function is:

Animal *animal = new Animal;
Cat *cat = new Cat;

func(animal); // Outputs: "I'm eating generic food."
func(cat);    // Outputs: "I'm eating generic food."

Uh oh... we passed a Cat into func(), but it won't eat rats. Should you overload func() so it takes a Cat*? If you have to derive more animals from Animal they would all need their own func().

The solution is to make eat() from the Animal class a virtual function:

class Animal
{
    public:
        virtual void eat() { std::cout << "I'm eating generic food."; }
};

class Cat : public Animal
{
    public:
        void eat() { std::cout << "I'm eating a rat."; }
};

Main:

func(animal); // Outputs: "I'm eating generic food."
func(cat);    // Outputs: "I'm eating a rat."

Done.