Classes with missing destructor declarations can be unproductive
class Vehicle
{
public:
Vehicle();
virtual ~Vehicle();
void start();
void stop();
virtual void run();
protected:
Engine* theEngine;
};
class Car : public Vehicle
{
public:
Car();
~Car(); // VIOLATION
protected:
int numberOfWheels;
};
Remedy
class Car : public Vehicle
{
public:
Car();
virtual ~Car(); // FIXED
protected:
int numberOfWheels;
};
Why you should care
A missing virtual keyword in front of a destructor “overriding” a virtual destructor will hide the polymorphic nature of the destructor from developers using the class. They may not know that at execution time other destructors in the inheritance tree will be executed. A missing virtual keyword may also be an indication that the author of the destructor ignored the fact that it needed to be virtual and thus was not aware that the destructor requires specific attention and specific coding.
Business Impacts
CAST recommendations
References
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sql/sql-transactions.htm
About CAST and Highlight’s Code Insights
Over the last 25 years, CAST has leveraged unique knowledge on software quality measurement by analyzing thousands of applications and billions of lines of code. Based on this experience and community standards on programming best practices, Highlight implements hundreds of code insights across 15+ technologies to calculate health factors of a software.