His eyes darted to the calling convention. UEAAX vs UEAAX … no. Then he saw it. The const -ness of the Archive& parameter.
void VoxelGrid::serialize(Archive& ar) { ar & width; ar & height; // ... more code } He checked the header ( VoxelGrid.h ):
He tried the classic "Clean Solution" — no change. He deleted the .vs folder — no change. He turned off precompiled headers — no change. He whispered an ancient mantra: "It’s not the compiler, it’s you." — still no change. c++ 2019
Scrolling through the mangled output, he saw it. A tiny, horrifying difference:
?serialize@VoxelGrid@@UEAAXAEAVArchive@@@Z (in the .obj file) His eyes darted to the calling convention
It was a cold November night in 2019. Rain lashed against the window of Leo’s tiny home office, but he didn’t notice. His screen glowed with the familiar, comforting, and utterly infuriating blue light of Visual Studio 2019.
class VoxelGrid : public Serializable { public: virtual void serialize(Archive& ar) override; }; Everything looked perfect. No typos. No missing includes. The virtual keyword matched. The override was correct. The const -ness of the Archive& parameter
VS2019’s IntelliSense had auto-completed the signature in the .cpp file from a previous version of the header. It was a silent, invisible mismatch. The compiler saw them as two entirely different functions. One was implemented. One was pure virtual and missing. The linker, as always, took the blame.