Undefined reference to vtable

Question

So, I'm getting the infamously horrible

undefined reference to 'vtable...

error for the following code (The class in question is CGameModule.) and I cannot for the life of me understand what the problem is. At first, I thought it was related to forgetting to give a virtual function a body, but as far as I understand, everything is all here. The inheritance chain is a little long, but here is the related source code. I'm not sure what other information I should provide.

Note: The constructor is where this error is happening, it'd seem.

My code:

class CGameModule : public CDasherModule {
 public:
  CGameModule(Dasher::CEventHandler *pEventHandler, CSettingsStore *pSettingsStore, CDasherInterfaceBase *pInterface, ModuleID_t iID, const char *szName)
  : CDasherModule(pEventHandler, pSettingsStore, iID, 0, szName)
  { 
      g_pLogger->Log("Inside game module constructor");   
      m_pInterface = pInterface; 
  }

  virtual ~CGameModule() {};

  std::string GetTypedTarget();

  std::string GetUntypedTarget();

  bool DecorateView(CDasherView *pView) {
      //g_pLogger->Log("Decorating the view");
      return false;
  }

  void SetDasherModel(CDasherModel *pModel) { m_pModel = pModel; }


  virtual void HandleEvent(Dasher::CEvent *pEvent); 

 private:



  CDasherNode *pLastTypedNode;


  CDasherNode *pNextTargetNode;


  std::string m_sTargetString;


  size_t m_stCurrentStringPos;


  CDasherModel *m_pModel;


  CDasherInterfaceBase *m_pInterface;
};

Inherits from...

class CDasherModule;
typedef std::vector<CDasherModule*>::size_type ModuleID_t;

/// \ingroup Core
/// @{
class CDasherModule : public Dasher::CDasherComponent {
 public:
  CDasherModule(Dasher::CEventHandler * pEventHandler, CSettingsStore * pSettingsStore, ModuleID_t iID, int iType, const char *szName);

  virtual ModuleID_t GetID();
  virtual void SetID(ModuleID_t);
  virtual int GetType();
  virtual const char *GetName();

  virtual bool GetSettings(SModuleSettings **pSettings, int *iCount) {
    return false;
  };

 private:
  ModuleID_t m_iID;
  int m_iType;
  const char *m_szName;
};

Which inherits from....

namespace Dasher {
  class CEvent;
  class CEventHandler;
  class CDasherComponent;
};

/// \ingroup Core
/// @{
class Dasher::CDasherComponent {
 public:
  CDasherComponent(Dasher::CEventHandler* pEventHandler, CSettingsStore* pSettingsStore);
  virtual ~CDasherComponent();

  void InsertEvent(Dasher::CEvent * pEvent);
  virtual void HandleEvent(Dasher::CEvent * pEvent) {};

  bool GetBoolParameter(int iParameter) const;
  void SetBoolParameter(int iParameter, bool bValue) const;

  long GetLongParameter(int iParameter) const;
  void SetLongParameter(int iParameter, long lValue) const;

  std::string GetStringParameter(int iParameter) const;
  void        SetStringParameter(int iParameter, const std::string & sValue) const;

  ParameterType   GetParameterType(int iParameter) const;
  std::string     GetParameterName(int iParameter) const;

 protected:
  Dasher::CEventHandler *m_pEventHandler;
  CSettingsStore *m_pSettingsStore;
};
/// @}


#endif

Answer 1

This was the first search result for me so I thought I'd add another thing to check: make sure the definition of virtual functions are actually on the class. In my case, I had this:

Header file:

class A {
 public:
  virtual void foo() = 0;
};

class B : public A {
 public:
  void foo() override;
};

and in my .cc file:

void foo() {
  ...
}

This should read

void B::foo() {
}

Answer 2

The GCC FAQ has an entry on it:

The solution is to ensure that all virtual methods that are not pure are defined. Note that a destructor must be defined even if it is declared pure-virtual [class.dtor]/7.

Answer 3

It's also possible that you get a message like

SomeClassToTest.host.o: In function `class1::class1(std::string const&)':
class1.hpp:114: undefined reference to `vtable for class1'
SomeClassToTest.host.o: In function `class1::~class1()':
class1.hpp:119: undefined reference to `vtable for class1'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
[link] FAILED: 'g++' '-o' 'stage/tests/SomeClassToTest' 'object/tests/SomeClassToTest.host.o' 'object/tests/FakeClass1.SomeClassToTest.host.o'

if you forget to define a virtual function of a class FakeClass1 when you're trying to link a unit test for another class SomeClass.

//class declaration in class1.h
class class1
{
    public:
    class1()
    {
    }
    virtual ~class1()
    {
    }
    virtual void ForgottenFunc();
};

And

//class definition in FakeClass1.h
//...
//void ForgottenFunc() {} is missing here

In this case I suggest you check out your fake for class1 once again. You'll probably find that you may have forgotten to define a virtual function ForgottenFunc in your fake class.

Answer 4

So I was using Qt with Windows XP and MinGW compiler and this thing was driving me crazy.

Basically the moc_xxx.cpp was generated empty even when I was added

Q_OBJECT

Deleting everything making functions virtual, explicit and whatever you guess doesn't worked. Finally I started removing line by line and it turned out that I had

#ifdef something

Around the file. Even when the #ifdef was true moc file was not generated.

So removing all #ifdefs fixed the problem.

This thing was not happening with Windows and VS 2013.

Answer 5

I got this error when I added a second class to an existing source/header pair. Two class headers in the same .h file, and function definitions for two classes in the same .cpp file.

I've done this successfully before, with classes that are meant to work closely together, but apparently something didn't like me this time. Still don't know what, but splitting them into one class per compilation unit fixed it right up.

---

The failed attempt:

_gui_icondata.h:

#ifndef ICONDATA_H
#define ICONDATA_H

class Data;
class QPixmap;

class IconData
{
public:
    explicit IconData();
    virtual ~IconData();

    virtual void setData(Data* newData);
    Data* getData() const;
    virtual const QPixmap* getPixmap() const = 0;

    void toggleSelected();
    void toggleMirror();
    virtual void updateSelection() = 0;
    virtual void updatePixmap(const QPixmap* pixmap) = 0;

protected:
    Data* myData;
};

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#include "_gui_icon.h"

class IconWithData : public Icon, public IconData
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit IconWithData(QWidget* parent);
    virtual ~IconWithData();

    virtual const QPixmap* getPixmap() const;
    virtual void updateSelection();
    virtual void updatePixmap(const QPixmap* pixmap);

signals:

public slots:
};

#endif // ICONDATA_H

_gui_icondata.cpp:

#include "_gui_icondata.h"

#include "data.h"

IconData::IconData()
{
    myData = 0;
}

IconData::~IconData()
{
    if(myData)
    {
        myData->removeIcon(this);
    }
    //don't need to clean up any more; this entire object is going away anyway
}

void IconData::setData(Data* newData)
{
    if(myData)
    {
        myData->removeIcon(this);
    }
    myData = newData;
    if(myData)
    {
        myData->addIcon(this, false);
    }
    updateSelection();
}

Data* IconData::getData() const
{
    return myData;
}

void IconData::toggleSelected()
{
    if(!myData)
    {
        return;
    }

    myData->setSelected(!myData->getSelected());
    updateSelection();
}

void IconData::toggleMirror()
{
    if(!myData)
    {
        return;
    }

    myData->setMirrored(!myData->getMirrored());
    updateSelection();
}

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IconWithData::IconWithData(QWidget* parent) :
    Icon(parent), IconData()
{
}

IconWithData::~IconWithData()
{
}

const QPixmap* IconWithData::getPixmap() const
{
    return Icon::pixmap();
}

void IconWithData::updateSelection()
{
}

void IconWithData::updatePixmap(const QPixmap* pixmap)
{
    Icon::setPixmap(pixmap, true, true);
}

---

Again, adding a new source/header pair and cutting/pasting the IconWithData class verbatim into there "just worked".

Answer 6

If you are using Qt, try rerunning qmake. If this error is in the widget's class, qmake might have failed to notice that the ui class vtable should be regenerated. This fixed the issue for me.