Unresolved Externals when using polymorphism - c++

Question

Hi i'm getting the following errors:
Error 9 error LNK1120: 2 unresolved externals
Error 8 error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual __thiscall physics::~physics(void)" (??1physics##UAE#XZ) referenced in function "public: virtual void * __thiscall physics::`scalar deleting destructor'(unsigned int)" (??_Gphysics##UAEPAXI#Z)
Error 7 error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: virtual __thiscall student::~student(void)" (??1student##UAE#XZ) referenced in function __unwindfunclet$??0physics##QAE#XZ$0
which occur using the following code:
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
class student{
protected:
string fName,sName;
int id;
vector<string> cname;
vector<int> cmark;
public:
virtual ~student();
virtual void addCourse(string name, int mark)=0;
};
class physics : public student{
public:
physics(){//Initialize default values
fName="blank";
sName="blank";
id=0;
cname.push_back("none");
cmark.push_back(0);
};
~physics();
void addCourse(string name, int mark){
if(cname.size()==1){//override default value for a size of 1
cname[0]=name;
cmark[0]=mark;
}
else{
cname.push_back(name);
cmark.push_back(mark);
}
}
};
The above compiles fine but when i try to initialize an object in main() by using:
int main(){
//Database Storage
vector<student*> DB;
DB.push_back(new physics);
}
That's when i get the errors (removing the push_back line fixes it but i need this for my program). What am i doing wrong?

Answer 1

Turns out adding braces to the end of the destructors fixed it. What difference does that make? (from the comments)
The difference is that in one case you have a declaration which lacks a definition; in the second case you provide a (empty) definition inline.
Trying to invoke a function that is declared but not defined (as in the first case) result in an unresolved reference error raised by the linker - after all, what should it do when a function invocation is found for a function whose implementation is not available?