Author: Enpatika.com

The purpose of an abstract class (often referred to as an ABC) is to provide an appropriate base class from which other classes can inherit . Abstract classes cannot be used to instantiate objects and serves only as an interface. Attempting to instantiate an object of an abstract class causes a compilation error.

The purpose of an abstract class is to provide a blueprint for derived classes and set some rules what the derived classes must implement when they inherit an abstract class . We can use an abstract class as a base class and all derived classes must implement abstract definitions.

By definition, an abstract class in C++ is a class that has at least one pure virtual function (i.e., a function that has no definition). The classes inheriting the abstract class must provide a definition for the pure virtual function; otherwise, the subclass would become an abstract class itself.