Destructors for C++ Interface-like classes

Question

Starting to use PC-Lint on an existing code base (fear and trepidation).

One thing that it complains about is the following:

 class IBatch
 {
 public         


        

Answer 1

If there are virtual functions, there needs to be a virtual destructor. Always. It does not matter that it's only an interface class -- it still needs the virtual destructor.

Either that, or it needs a protected nonvirtual destructor. But then you cannot delete the object using the interface pointer.