Question

I have a class SimpleCircle. Its declaration is as follows:

class SimpleCircle
{
  public:
SimpleCircle();
SimpleCircle(int rad);
SimpleCircle(const SimpleCircle&);
~SimpleCircle();

   SimpleCircle operator++(int);
}

On the definition I use:

SimpleCircle SimpleCircle::operator++(int)
{
    SimpleCircle temp(*this);
    ++itsRadius;
    return temp;
}

When I am using

SimpleCircle temp(*this)

, is the copy constructor being called or what ? What is happening there ? I don’t have any constructor like

SimpleCircle(SimpleCircle newCircle)

or something (other than the copy constructor)

Answer 1

This does indeed call the copy constructor. While you don’t have a SimpleCircle(SimpleCircle other) constructor defined you do have SimpleCircle(const SimpleCircle&) defined. The expression *this can easily map to that constructor and hence it’s what’s being executed here.