Home » Tip Bank » C++

Language: C++
Expertise: Intermediate

Feb 2, 1998

There are cases where you have to define several constructors (or constructors and

  operator = 

) within one class, all of which perform some identical tasks (e.g., initialize members, allocate memory, and so on), plus additional individual functionality, as in the following example:

 
class Personnel {
	int children;
	float salary;
	string name;
	...
	public:
	personnel() {	children =0; 
		       	salary = 0.0;
		       	...//individual actions}
	personnel (const string& n) {	children =0; 
		       			salary = 0.0;
						name = n;
		      		 	...}
};

Instead of repeating identical pieces of code in each of the constructors, it