Question

I’ve got a class A, which consists of objects B and C. How to write a constructor of A that gets B and C objects? Should I pass them by value, by (const) reference, or a pointer? Where should I deallocate them?

I thought about pointers, because then I could write:

A a(new B(1,2,3,4,5), new C('x','y','z'))

But I don’t know whether it’s a good practice or not. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Usually you pass by const reference:

A a(B(1,2,3,4,5), C('x','y','z'))

No need for pointers here.

Usually you store values unless copying is too inefficient.
The class definition then reads:

class A {
private:
    B b;
    C c;
public:
    A(const B& b, const C& c): b(b), c(c) { }
};