Virtual/pure virtual explained

Question

What exactly does it mean if a function is defined as virtual and is that the same as pure virtual?

Answer 1

"Virtual" means that the method may be overridden in subclasses, but has an directly-callable implementation in the base class. "Pure virtual" means it is a virtual method with no directly-callable implementation. Such a method must be overridden at least once in the inheritance hierarchy -- if a class has any unimplemented virtual methods, objects of that class cannot be constructed and compilation will fail.

@quark points out that pure-virtual methods can have an implementation, but as pure-virtual methods must be overridden, the default implementation can't be directly called. Here is an example of a pure-virtual method with a default:

#include 

class A {
public:
    virtual void Hello() = 0;
};

void A::Hello() {
    printf("A::Hello\n");
}

class B : public A {
public:
    void Hello() {
        printf("B::Hello\n");
        A::Hello();
    }
};

int main() {
    /* Prints:
           B::Hello
           A::Hello
    */
    B b;
    b.Hello();
    return 0;
}

---

According to comments, whether or not compilation will fail is compiler-specific. In GCC 4.3.3 at least, it won't compile:

class A {
public:
    virtual void Hello() = 0;
};

int main()
{
    A a;
    return 0;
}

Output:

$ g++ -c virt.cpp 
virt.cpp: In function ‘int main()’:
virt.cpp:8: error: cannot declare variable ‘a’ to be of abstract type ‘A’
virt.cpp:1: note:   because the following virtual functions are pure within ‘A’:
virt.cpp:3: note:   virtual void A::Hello()