How am i overriding this C++ inherited member function without the virtual keyword being used?
- by Gary Willoughby
I have a small program to demonstrate simple inheritance. I am defining a Dog class which is derived from Mammal. Both classes share a simple member function called ToString(). How is Dog overriding the implementation in the Mammal class, when i'm not using the virtual keyword? (Do i even need to use the virtual keyword to override member functions?)
mammal.h
#ifndef MAMMAL_H_INCLUDED
#define MAMMAL_H_INCLUDED
#include <string>
class Mammal
{
public:
std::string ToString();
};
#endif // MAMMAL_H_INCLUDED
mammal.cpp
#include <string>
#include "mammal.h"
std::string Mammal::ToString()
{
return "I am a Mammal!";
}
dog.h
#ifndef DOG_H_INCLUDED
#define DOG_H_INCLUDED
#include <string>
#include "mammal.h"
class Dog : public Mammal
{
public:
std::string ToString();
};
#endif // DOG_H_INCLUDED
dog.cpp
#include <string>
#include "dog.h"
std::string Dog::ToString()
{
return "I am a Dog!";
}
main.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include "dog.h"
using namespace std;
int main()
{
Dog d;
std::cout << d.ToString() << std::endl;
return 0;
}
output
I am a Dog!
I'm using MingW on Windows via Code::Blocks.
