Can constructor call another constructor in c++?

Question

class A{
  A(int a = 5){
    DoSomething();
    A();
  }
  A(){...}
}

Can the first constructor call the second one?

Answer 1

Not before C++11.

Extract the common functionality into a separate function instead. I usually name this function construct().

The "so-called" second call would compile, but has a different meaning in C++: it would construct a new object, a temporary, which will then be instantly deleted at the end of the statement. So, no.

A destructor, however, can be called without a problem.

Answer 2

Not before C++0x, no.

BUT, just out of academic interest I've come up with a really horrible way* to do it using a placement operator "new" (someone care to point out how portable this is?)

#include <new>
#include <iostream>

class A
{
public:
    A(int i, int j)
        : i_(i), j_(j) { }

    A(int i)
    { new (this) A(i, 13); }

    int i_,j_;
};

int
main() {
    A a1(10,11), a2(10);
    std::cout
        << a1.i_ << ", "
        << a1.j_ << std::endl
        << a2.i_ << ", "
        << a2.j_ << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

*Hell no, I don't write this in the production code.

Answer 3

The answer is in fact "yes", but as others have suggested, it doesn't do what you want. You can of course use the constructor of a base class, either implicitly or explicitly:

struct B {
    B() {}
    B( int x ) {}
};

struct A : public B {
    A() {}    // calls B() implicitly
    A( int a, int b ) : B( b ) {} // calls B(int) explicitly
};

Answer 4

This is an old question; however,

class A{
  A(int a = 5){
    DoSomething();
    A();
  }
  A(){...}
}

could be

class A{
  A(int a = 5){
    *this = A();
    DoSomething();
  }
  A(){...}
}

Answer 5

Not directly. There are a few ways to work around this.

From the initializer list of your class' constructor, you can call a constructor on any base class, and on all member variables.

So you can usually refactor your class and split it into several smaller ones to solve the problem. The commonly executed code can be placed in a member object or perhaps a base class. Then each of the main class' constructors just have to decide which construcotr to use to initialize that member.

class B {
  B() {  }
  B(int b) { DoSomething(); }
}
class A{
  A(int a = 5) : b(a) { } // call B's constructor which does something
  A() : b() {} // call B's constructor which does nothing

  B b;
};

Answer 6

As pointed out by Pavel Radzivilovsky in his answer, since C++ 11, it is possible. It is the same syntax as for explicitely calling the parent's class constructor from a child class. This is useful when a class needs to have multiple constructors (say, a default constructor and a constructor with attribute initialization) but some operations have to be done in all cases. This allows to avoid code repetitions.

Here is an example:

class A
{
public:

    A()
    {
         foo();
    }

    A(Attribute attribute) : A()
    {
         this->attribute = attribute;
    }

    //------ some other code --------

private:

    Attribute attribute;
    void foo()
    {...}

    //------ some other code -------
};

In this simple example, I assume that the function foo() needs to be called in all cases for the object to be correctly initialized. With this syntax, if the second constructor (with attribute initialization) is called, it will first perform the operations in the default constructor before executing the instructions in the attribute-initialization constructor.

It can also be done the other way around: the default constructor can call another constructor with default parameters.

Before C++ 11, it was necessary to duplicate the common instructions of all constructors or define methods that do the actual object initialization.