C++ force override

Question

I have some class, like

class object {
public:
virtual std::string name() const; 
};

It provides some interface, and I want all derivated to override method name. Problem is, it is not overriden, nothing breaks at compile time, but I get problems in run-time. Is it any way to enforce method overriding? EDIT: I want to enforce overriding in all derivates, not just direct descedants!

Answer 1

You can check whether a member is defined in a base class by checking its pointer-to-member type:

static_assert(std::is_same<decltype(&U::name), std::string (U::*)()>::value,
              "name must be defined directly in U");

This does mean that at compile time you must have access to all the descendant types that you're interested in.