Return types of virtual functions

Under normal circumstances, the return type of a virtual function and it’s override must match. Thus, the following will not work:

classBase
{
public:
    virtualint GetValue() { return5; }
};
 
class Derived: public Base
{
public:
    virtual double GetValue() { return6.78; }
};

However, there is one special case in which this is not true. If the return type of a virtual function is a pointer or a reference to a class, override functions can return a pointer or a reference to a derived class.These are called covariant return types. Here is an example:

class Base
{
public:
    // This version of GetThis() returns a pointer to a Base class
    virtual Base* GetThis() { return this; }
};
 
class Derived: public Base
{
    // Normally override functions have to return objects of the same type as the base function
    // However, because Derived is derived from Base, it's okay to return Derived* instead of Base*
    virtual Derived* GetThis() { return this; }
};

Note that some older compilers (eg. Visual Studio 6) do not support covariant return types.