Is it possible to forbid deriving from a class at compile time?

Question

I have a value class according to the description in \"C++ Coding Standards\", Item 32. In short, that means it provides value semantics and does not have any virtual method

Answer 1

This solution doesn't work, but I leave it as an example of what not to do.

---

I haven't used C++ for a while now, but as far as I remember, you get what you want by making destructor private.

UPDATE:

On Visual Studio 2005 you'll get either a warning or an error. Check up the following code:

class A
{
public:
    A(){}
private:
    ~A(){}
};

class B : A
{
};

Now,

B b;

will produce an error "error C2248: 'A::~A' : cannot access private member declared in class 'A'"

while

B *b = new B();

will produce warning "warning C4624: 'B' : destructor could not be generated because a base class destructor is inaccessible".

It looks like a half-solutiom, BUT as orsogufo pointed, doing so makes class A unusable. Leaving answers