At 10:04 2005-10-25, Andy Tompkins wrote:

I have read a few times that people sometimes wish that std::vector (or other containers) had a virtual destructor. I have recently wished for the same thing and I fairly quickly write a class called virtual_vector something like:

template <class Type, class Allo = std::allocator<Type> > class virtual_vector { public: ~virtual_vector(); ... private: std::vector<Type, Alloc> m_vector; };

All the public methods of std::vector are present in virtual_vector and are just forwarded on m_vector.

This allows one to write something like:

struct person { string first_name; string last_name; }; class people : public virtual_vector<person> { public: //extra methods };

Is this useful?

unless I mis-read (or mis-understood...far more likely) a lot of books on how C++ works, I don't believe there is any reason for what _you've_ shown to need a virtual destructor. Until your derived class needs a non-trivial destructor it won't matter one way or another. Specifically, simply adding methods shouldn't create the need for a non-trivial destructor.

Has this been done already?

Thanks in advance for any comments? Andy Tompkins _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost

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