.. index:: ! contract;abstract, ! abstract contract

.. _abstract-contract:

******************
Abstract Contracts
******************

Contracts must be marked as abstract when at least one of their functions is not implemented or when
they do not provide arguments for all of their base contract constructors.
Even if this is not the case, a contract may still be marked abstract, such as when you do not intend
for the contract to be created directly. Abstract contracts are similar to :ref:`interfaces` but an
interface is more limited in what it can declare.

An abstract contract is declared using the ``abstract`` keyword as shown in the following example.
Note that this contract needs to be defined as abstract, because the function ``utterance()`` is declared,
but no implementation was provided (no implementation body ``{ }`` was given).

.. code-block:: solidity

    // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
    pragma solidity >=0.6.0 <0.9.0;

    abstract contract Feline {
        function utterance() public virtual returns (bytes32);
    }

Such abstract contracts can not be instantiated directly. This is also true, if an abstract contract itself does implement
all defined functions. The usage of an abstract contract as a base class is shown in the following example:

.. code-block:: solidity

    // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
    pragma solidity >=0.6.0 <0.9.0;

    abstract contract Feline {
        function utterance() public pure virtual returns (bytes32);
    }

    contract Cat is Feline {
        function utterance() public pure override returns (bytes32) { return "miaow"; }
    }

If a contract inherits from an abstract contract and does not implement all non-implemented
functions by overriding, it needs to be marked as abstract as well.

Note that a function without implementation is different from
a :ref:`Function Type <function_types>` even though their syntax looks very similar.

Example of function without implementation (a function declaration):

.. code-block:: solidity

    function foo(address) external returns (address);

Example of a declaration of a variable whose type is a function type:

.. code-block:: solidity

    function(address) external returns (address) foo;

Abstract contracts decouple the definition of a contract from its
implementation providing better extensibility and self-documentation and
facilitating patterns like the `Template method <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_method_pattern>`_ and removing code duplication.
Abstract contracts are useful in the same way that defining methods
in an interface is useful. It is a way for the designer of the
abstract contract to say "any child of mine must implement this method".

.. note::

  Abstract contracts cannot override an implemented virtual function with an
  unimplemented one.