Cloning C++ class with pure virtual methods

Question

I have the following relation of classes. I want to clone the class Derived, but I get the error "cannot instantiate abstract class". How I can clone the derived class? Thanks.

class Base {
public:
    virtual ~Base() {}
    virtual Base* clone() const = 0;
};

class Derived: public Base {
public:
    virtual void func() = 0;
    virtual Derived* clone() const {
        return new Derived(*this);
    }
};

Answer 1

Only concrete classes can be instantiated. You have to redesign the interface of Derived in order to do cloning. At first, remove virtual void func() = 0; Then you will be able to write this code:

class Base {
public:
    virtual ~Base() {}
    virtual Base* clone() const = 0;
};

class Derived: public Base {
public:
    virtual Derived* clone() const {
        return new Derived(*this);
    }
};

Another solution is keeping pure virtual function in-place and adding a concrete class:

class Base {
public:
    virtual ~Base() {}
    virtual Base* clone() const = 0;
};

class Derived: public Base {
public:
    virtual void func() = 0;
};

class Derived2: public Derived {
public:
    virtual void func() {};
    virtual Derived2* clone() const {
        return new Derived2(*this);
    }
};

Answer 2

You can not instantiate a class which has a pure virtual function like this:

virtual void yourFunction() = 0

Make a subclass or remove it.

Answer 3

Only concrete class can be instancied. Func should be not pure.