What does 'virtualkeyword in C plus plus?

Answer 1

In C++ you can create objects, and these objects can inherit from another object.

So imagine you are making a game and you make a really cool class for the common enemy, but now you want to make another class for the BIG boss at the end of the game. You could have the new boss character inherit from the common enemy and only swoop up a few things.

Boss Guy = new Enemy;

because of polymorphism (changing one type into another) you can do this. The "virtual" keyword is used to help in a situation like this:

Guy.runAI();

Which function are you trying to run, the enemy AI or the Bosses AI, because as you can see in the declaration we declared "Guy" as an enemy and a Boss, the function with the virtual function will be used. So if the bosses runAI() function is virtual then it will always be used when there is confusion about what function to use.