Virtual inheritance · WebGlossary.info

A C++ technique that ensures only one copy of a base class’s member variables are inherited by grandchild-derived classes. Without virtual inheritance, if two classes B and C inherit from a class A, and a class D inherits from both B and C, then D will contain two copies of A’s member variables: one via B, and one via C. These will be accessible independently, using scope resolution. Instead, if classes B and C inherit virtually from class A, then objects of class D will contain only one set of the member variables from class A. This feature is most useful for multiple inheritance, as it makes the virtual base a common subobject for the deriving class and all classes that are derived from it. ← Wikipedia