[metaform3d]

There must be a way to do this, but I must be some kind of idiot because any time I wade into this with C++ I get hopelessly confused. Any expert help appreciated!

I want to create objects to represent a mathematical expression. This is a tree of expressions of different types, each one being an operator with sub-expressions. Simple enough, right? So I start with

class Expression {
    public:
    Expression        *exp_parent;
    Expression        *sub_exp[MAX_SUBEXP];

             Expression (Expression * parent);
    virtual        ~Expression ();

    virtual int         OpTerm () = 0;
    virtual void         OpResult (float &, float *) = 0;

    virtual    Expression *     Copy (Expression *);
    void             Eval (float &);
};

The parent expression is passed as an argument to the constructor so we know it's always valid.

Expression::Expression (
    Expression        *parent)
{
    exp_parent = parent;
}

Now we come to the first problem. In the destructor for the abstract class I want to read the number of subexpression (which varies with subclass) and destroy them as part of destroying the parent expression.

Expression::~Expression ()
{
    int             i, n;

    n = OpTerm ();
    for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
        delete sub_exp[i];
}

No dice. The compiler complains:

exp.cpp(250): warning #705: call of pure virtual function
        n = OpTerm ();
            ^

Is it really impossible to use methods in the subclass to implement the destructor for the common parts of the superclass?