Why "override/final" need to placed after function declarator?

Question

I've always wondered about the decision, why override and final has to be after member-function declarator:

struct Base {
    virtual void virtFun();
};
struct Foo: Base {
    virtual void virtFun() override;
};

For me, it would be more logical to put override/final in place of virtual:

struct Base {
    virtual void virtFun();
};
struct Foo: Base {
    override void virtFun();
};

Is there a reason behind this? Maybe some compatibility issue with pre C++11?

Answer 1

It's because override and final are not keywords.

Instead they are special identifiers.

That means you can actually declare variables, functions or type-names (type-alias or classes) with those names.

They can only be used like member-function modifiers in a very small context, where the context have to be know beforehand by the compiler as it parses the source. Placing them after the function declaration is a very simple way of removing ambiguity from the C++ grammar for that context.