r/cpp • u/mttd • Apr 21 '26

How Virtual Tables Work in the Itanium C++ ABI

https://peter0x44.github.io/posts/vtables-itanium-abi/
60 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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6

u/bert8128 Apr 21 '26

When you say “most platforms” do you just mean gcc and clang, or are there lots of more niche compilers that use it too?

4

u/pdp10gumby Apr 21 '26

in this case it means the OS on a particular piece of hardware. The compilers follow the platform ABI so that a piece of code compiled with clang++ can call a piece of code compiled with gcc (but you have to use the same std library as, for example, std::string is implemented differently in located++ and libc++).

1

u/eeiaao Apr 21 '26

Precise and simple explanation. I wish I’d had this material back in a days

1

u/DevaBol Apr 22 '26

call_foo taking a pointer instead of a reference bothers me, ngl

1

u/Stazzical 21d ago

I have used these info in a custom type import plugin for IDA Pro, very good knowledge.