I’m wondering what the possible causes of an MCU halting on a polymorphic function call might be.

I have the following code. I can call the member function directly on the non-pointer variable. However, once I cast the variable to a pointer of it’s parent virtual class and try calling the member function through polymorphism, the mcu halts.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

// parent.h

#ifndef WAVES_2_DSP_ENGINE_PARENT_H
#define WAVES_2_DSP_ENGINE_PARENT_H

namespace waves2 {

class Parent {
public:
    Parent() {}
    ~Parent() {}
    virtual void Init() = 0;
};

}

#endif

// child.h

#ifndef WAVES_2_DSP_ENGINE_CHILD_H
#define WAVES_2_DSP_ENGINE_CHILD_H

#include "waves2/dsp/engine/parent.h"

namespace waves2 {

class Child: public Parent
{
public:

    Child() { }
    ~Child() { }

    virtual void Init();

private:
    DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(Child);
};

}

#endif

// child.cc

#include "waves2/dsp/engine/child.h"

namespace waves2 {

void Child::Init() {
}

}

#endif

// main.cpp

Child child;

int main(void) {

  // this works fine
  child.Init();

  Parent* p = &child;
  // If I execute the following code,
  // the code which toggles the LED will not be reached
  p->Init();

  while(1) {
      // toggle led
      if((system_clock.milliseconds() / 1000) % 2 < 1) {
          GPIO_SetBits(GPIOA, GPIO_Pin_5);
      } else {
          GPIO_ResetBits(GPIOA, GPIO_Pin_5);
      }
  }
}