Chapter 2: Constructors, Destructors and Assignment Operators

Almost every class you write will have one or more constructors, a destructor, and a copy assignment operator. Little wonder. These are your bread-and-butter functions, the ones that control the fundamental operations of bringing a new object into existence and making sure it’s initialized, getting rid of an object and making sure it’s properly cleaned up, and giving an object a new value. Making mistakes in these functions will lead to far-reaching — and unpleasant — repercussions throughout your classes, so it’s vital that you get them right. In this chapter, I offer guidance on putting together the functions that comprise the backbone of well-formed classes.

Item 5: Know what functions C++ silently writes a calls.

Item 6: Explicitly disallow the use of compiler-generated functions you do not want.

Item 7: Declare destructors virtual in polymorphic base classes.

Item 8: Prevent exceptions from leaving destructors.

Item 9: Never call virtual functions during construction or destruction.

Item 10: Have assignment operators return a reference to *this.

Item 11: Handle assignment to self in operator=.

Item 12: Copy all parts of an object.