Class inheritance problems

Hi there!
First time on this forum, guys from the SDL mailing list gave me the tip ;)

I´m having a problem with the 2D graphics game engine I´m developing. I´m
doing the event management system right now and decided that I should create a class named EventHandler that has a pure virtual function named
HandleEvent. This function is the one that, obviously, handles inputs and
any other ocurrencies differently depending on the element of the game we
are talking about, like a sprite, a tile, or, talking high-level, items,
characters and so on.
Many classes must inherit from EventHandler so they are obliged to implement
HandleEvent() and can be all referenced on a single vector that I will use
later to check some things out.
BUT the problem is: I have every class on a header file, and its function
codes on a correspondent .cpp file. So each of these header files supposedly
must include my 'eventHandler.h', causing multiple referencing. And I can´t
just use forward referencing to EventHandler, because of the inheritance.
What do I do? I´m using Dev-C++, and all my header files have those #ifndef
#define #endif directives.

Thanks in advance,
Carol

Quote:

---

BUT the problem is: I have every class on a header file, and its function
codes on a correspondent .cpp file. So each of these header files supposedly
must include my 'eventHandler.h', causing multiple referencing. And I can´t
just use forward referencing to EventHandler, because of the inheritance.
What do I do? I´m using Dev-C++, and all my header files have those #ifndef
#define #endif directives.

---

If eventHandler.h uses header guards as you say your header files have, then there should not be a problem. Why not give a minimal example that shows what is the problem that you are concerned with?

'event.h' is where all the wrongly referenced code is. 'tilemap.h' is just one of the files that reference to 'event.h', but they all do it the same way (simply using #include "event.h"). The error message is:

multiple definition of `EventHandler::CleanEvent()'
first defined here
multiple definition of `EventHandler::DispatchEvent()'
first defined here
multiple definition of `EventHandler::FillEvent(_eventID, EventHandler*, EventHandler*)'
first defined here
multiple definition of `EventHandler::FillEvent(_eventID, EventHandler*, bool)'
first defined here

The phrases above repeat themselves more 6 times(number of references to 'event.h'), then comes:

[Linker error] undefined reference to `vtable for EventHandler'
[Linker error] undefined reference to `vtable for EventHandler'

This one also comes around 7 times:

[Linker error] undefined reference to `EventHandler::HandleEvent()'

These are linker errors.
You should not define the member functions (like `EventHandler::CleanEvent() ) in the header. If you think that you have to, use the inline keyword or define them inside the class.
Kurt

So THAT´s what inline functions are for.

Thanks,
Carol =)

By the way, it is good practice for classes intended as base classes to have a virtual destructor.

Didn´t know that. I´ll do some research on it then.

Thanks again!