Question

I have two classes with a parent-child relationship (the Parent class “has-a” Child class), and the Child class has a pointer back to the Parent. It would be nice to initialize the parent pointer upon construction of the child, as follows:

class Child;
class Parent;

class Child
{
public:
 Child (Parent* parent_ptr_) : parent_ptr(parent_ptr_) {};

private:
 Parent* parent_ptr;
};

class Parent
{
public:
    Parent() : child(this) {};

private:
    Child child;
}

Now, I know people recommend not using this in initialization list, and C++ FAQ says I’m gonna get a compiler warning (BTW, on VS2010, I don’t get a warning), but I really like this better then calling some set function in Parent‘s constructor. My questions are:

• Is the parent this pointer well-defined when the Child object is being created?
• If so, why is it considered bad practice to use it as above?

Thanks,

Boaz

EDIT: Thanks Timbo, it is indeed a duplicate (huh, I even chose the same class names). So lets get some added value: how about references? Is it possible / safe to do the following? :

class Child
{
public:
 Child (Parent& parnet_ptr_) : parent_ptr(parent_ptr_) {};

private:
 Parent* parent_ptr;
};

class Parent
{
public:
    Parent() : child(*this) {};

private:
    Child child;
}

Answer 1

Yes. It’s safe to use this pointer in initialization-list as long as it’s not being used to access uninitialized members or virtual functions, directly or indirectly, as the object is not yet fully constructed. The object child can store the this pointer of Parent for later use!