call to pure virtual function from base class constructor

Question

I have a base class MyBase that contains a pure virtual function:

void PrintStartMessage() = 0

I want each derived class to call it in their co

Answer 1

I know this is an old question, but I came across the same question while working on my program.

If your goal is to reduce code duplication by having the Base class handle the shared initialization code while requiring the Derived classes to specify the code unique to them in a pure virtual method, this is what I decided on.

#include 

class MyBase
{
public:
    virtual void UniqueCode() = 0;
    MyBase() {};
    void init(MyBase & other)
    {
      std::cout << "Shared Code before the unique code" << std::endl;
      other.UniqueCode();
      std::cout << "Shared Code after the unique code" << std::endl << std::endl;
    }
};

class FirstDerived : public MyBase
{
public:
    FirstDerived() : MyBase() { init(*this); };
    void  UniqueCode()
    {
      std::cout << "Code Unique to First Derived Class" << std::endl;
    }
private:
    using MyBase::init;
};

class SecondDerived : public MyBase
{
public:
    SecondDerived() : MyBase() { init(*this); };
    void  UniqueCode()
    {
      std::cout << "Code Unique to Second Derived Class" << std::endl;
    }
private:
    using MyBase::init;
};

int main()
{
    FirstDerived first;
    SecondDerived second;
}

The output is:

 Shared Code before the unique code
 Code Unique to First Derived Class
 Shared Code after the unique code

 Shared Code before the unique code
 Code Unique to Second Derived Class
 Shared Code after the unique code