Undefined reference to vtable

Question

When building my C++ program, I\'m getting the error message

undefined reference to \'vtable...

What is the cause of this probl

Answer 1

I think it's also worth mentioning that you will also get the message when you try to link to object of any class that has at least one virtual method and linker cannot find the file. For example:

Foo.hpp:

class Foo
{
public:
    virtual void StartFooing();
};

Foo.cpp:

#include "Foo.hpp"

void Foo::StartFooing(){ //fooing }

Compiled with:

g++ Foo.cpp -c

And main.cpp:

#include "Foo.hpp"

int main()
{
    Foo foo;
}

Compiled and linked with:

g++ main.cpp -o main

Gives our favourite error:

/tmp/cclKnW0g.o: In function main': main.cpp:(.text+0x1a): undefined reference tovtable for Foo' collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

This occure from my undestanding becasue:

1. Vtable is created per class at compile time

2. Linker does not have access to vtable that is in Foo.o