Question

Suppose I have the following struct:

struct sampleData
{
       int x;
       int y;
};

And when used, I want to initialize variables of sampleData type to a known state.

sampleData sample = { 1, 2 } 

Later, I decide that I need additional data stored in my sampleData struct, as follows:

struct sampleData
{
       int x;
       int y;
       int z;
};

It is my understanding that the two field initialization left over from my pre-z data structure is still a valid statement, and will be compiled., populating the missing fields with default values.

Is this understanding correct? I have been working recently in Ada, which also allows aggregate initialization, but which would flag a similar issue as a compilation error. Assuming that my assumptions about the C++ code above are correct, is there a language construct which would recognize missing initialization values as an error?

Answer 1

Initialising variables that way is only supported with Aggregate Classes.

If you add constructor(s) then then problem goes away, but you’ll need to change the syntax a little and you lose the ability to store the struct in a union (among other things).

struct sampleData
{
    sampleData(int x, int y) : x(x), y(y) {}
    int x;
    int y;
};

sampleData sample( 1, 2 );

Adding z (and changing the constructor) will mark sample( 1, 2 ) as a compile error.