Question

I figured out that it’s possible to initialize the member variables with a constructor argument of the same name as show in the example below.

#include <cstdio>
#include <vector>

class Blah {
    std::vector<int> vec;

public:
    Blah(std::vector<int> vec): vec(vec)
    {}

    void printVec() {

        for(unsigned int i=0; i<vec.size(); i++)
            printf("%i ", vec.at(i));

        printf("\n");
    }
};

int main() {

    std::vector<int> myVector(3);

    myVector.at(0) = 1;
    myVector.at(1) = 2;
    myVector.at(2) = 3;

    Blah blah(myVector);

    blah.printVec();

    return 0;
}

g++ 4.4 with the arguments -Wall -Wextra -pedantic gives no warning and works correctly. It also works with clang++. I wonder what the C++ standard says about it? Is it legal and guaranteed to always work?

Answer 1

I wonder what the C++ standard says about it? Is it legal and guaranteed to always work?

Yes. That is perfectly legal. Fully Standard conformant.

Blah(std::vector<int> vec): vec(vec){}
                             ^   ^                           
                             |   |
                             |    this is the argument to the constructor
                             this is your member data

Since you asked for the reference in the Standard, here it is, with an example.

§12.6.2/7

Names in the expression-list of a mem-initializer are evaluated in the scope of the constructor for which the mem-initializer is specified.

[Example:
class X {
 int a;
 int b;
 int i;
 int j;
 public:
 const int& r;
  X(int i): r(a), b(i), i(i), j(this->i) {}
                      //^^^^ note this (added by Nawaz)
};

initializes X::r to refer to X::a,
initializes X::b with the value of the
constructor parameter i, initializes
X::i with the value of the constructor
parameter i, and initializes X::j with
the value of X::i; this takes place
each time an object of class X is
created. ]

[Note: because the
mem-initializer are evaluated in the
scope of the constructor, the this
pointer can be used in the
expression-list of a mem-initializer
to refer to the object being
initialized. ]

As you can see, there’re other interesting thing to note in the above example, and the commentary from the Standard itself.

---

BTW, as side note, why don’t you accept the parameter as const reference:

 Blah(const std::vector<int> & vec): vec(vec) {}
      ^^^^const              ^reference

It avoids unneccessary copy of the original vector object.