You can initialize variables of fundamental types by invoking their constructor:
int n = int(); /* zero initialized */ char c = char(); /* ditto */ short *ps = new short(0); /* ps points at a zero-initialized short */ Apparently, the constructor-like syntax seems redundant; after all, you can use the traditional initialization syntax:
int n = 0; char c = 0;So is it just an interesting bit of trivia? No, it isn’t. The constructor-initialization form is the only way to initialize dynamically allocated variables. Consider
short *ps = new short(0); Without the constructor initialization, ps would point to a short with an indeterminate value. More importantly, generic algorithms and containers rely on this form toprovide a uniform interface for fundamental types and user-defined typesalike. Thus, a vector
