How does virtual method invocation work in C++?

Question

How does Virtual Method Invocation work in C++?

Answer 1

Through virtual tables.

Read this article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_table.

I could explain it here, but the wikipedia does a better job than I could.

Answer 2

The C++ standard doesn't specify how the virtual function mechanism should be implemented.

That said, I think all current C++ compilers use virtual tables.
The common way to do this for classes which contain at least one virtual function to have a hidden pointer to a so-called virtual table, where the addresses of the virtual functions for a specific class are entered in compiler-specific order.
Each constructor will then set this hidden pointer to the virtual table of the class it belongs to.