Use Class Member Initializers for Cleaner and Easier-to-Maintain Constructors -2 : Page 2

The Repeated Initializers Problem

In contemporary C++, a member-declarator can contain a constant initializer only if the affected member is both static and of a const integral type, or if it's a const enumeration type. For example, the following is allowed in C++98 and C++03:

class A
{
  static const int MAX=1024;
  public:
  A();
  //..
};

However, the next class declaration example is ill-formed because b is neither a const static data member of an integral type nor a const enumeration:

class C
{
  int b=1024; //error
  bool f;
  double d;
  //..
};

Because of this restriction, programmers are forced to repeat the initialization of b in every constructor of class C:

class C
{
  int b;
  bool f;
  double d;
  public:
    C(): b(1024), f(false), d(0.0) {}
    C(bool flag) : b(1024), f(flag), d(0.0) {}
    C(bool flag, double dbl): b(1024), f(flag), d(dbl){}
};

Such repetition is both laborious and error prone. Why not let a programmer specify the initializer for b only once? A new C++0x proposal allows you to do exactly that—and even more.