[c++] invalid new-expression of abstract class type

I am currently writing a raytracer for a university class. In order to load Scenes from files I wrote an sdfloader to read sdf files and create scenes therefor.

if I now want to compile the loader i get the following error:

rc/sdf_loader.cpp: In member function 'void SDFloader::add_shape(std::istringstream&)':
src/sdf_loader.cpp:95:58: error: invalid new-expression of abstract class type 'box'
                                &scene_.materials[mat]));
                                                      ^

I tried to find a solution but failed.

The sdf_loader class looks like the following:

class SDFloader {
  public:
    SDFloader();
    ~SDFloader();

    Scene const& scene() const;
    void read(std::string file);

  private:
    void add_material(std::istringstream&);
    void add_shape(std::istringstream&);
    void add_light(std::istringstream&);
    void add_camera(std::istringstream&);
    void apply_transformation(std::istringstream&);

  private:
    Scene scene_;
};

in my implementation of the sdf loader i wrote the method read():

void SDFloader::add_shape(std::istringstream& iss) {

    std::string name;
    iss >> name;

    if(name == "box") {
      double x1,y1,z1,x2,y2,z2;
      std::string mat;
      iss >> name >> x1 >> y1 >> z1 >> x2 >> y2 >> z2 >> mat;
      scene_.shapes.insert(new box(point(x1,y1,z1),
                                   point(x2,y2,z2),
                                   name,
                                   &scene_.materials[mat]));
    }

and for every other shape the same calls.

Where is the Problem in my code? I really don't see it

I am using g++-4.9 - std=c++0x to compile and link everything

for others scratching their heads, I came across this error because I had innapropriately const-qualified one of the arguments to a method in a base class, so the derived class member functions were not over-riding it. so make sure you don't have something like

class Base 
{
  public:
      virtual void foo(int a, const int b) = 0;
}
class D: public Base 
{
 public:
     void foo(int a, int b){};
}

If you use C++11, you can use the specifier "override", and it will give you a compiler error if your aren't correctly overriding an abstract method. You probably have a method that doesn't match exactly with an abstract method in the base class, so your aren't actually overriding it.

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/override

Another possible cause for future Googlers

I had this issue because a method I was trying to implement required a std::unique_ptr<Queue>(myQueue) as a parameter, but the Queue class is abstract. I solved that by using a QueuePtr(myQueue) constructor like so:

using QueuePtr = std::unique_ptr<Queue>;

and used that in the parameter list instead. This fixes it because the initializer tries to create a copy of Queue when you make a std::unique_ptr of its type, which can't happen.