Constructors

• Constructors have no return type

• Constructors are not inherited because they are responsible for creating and initializing the specifc class they belong to

Default Constructor

• Takes no arguments
• Automatically called when an object is created without parameters
• if a constructor is not defined , C++ provides an implicit default constructor

class Person{
public:
  Person(){
    cout<<"Default constructor called\n";
  }
};

Parameterized Constructor

• this is pointer which points to the current object
• Takes arguments
• Used to initialize objects with specific values

class Person{
  string name;
  Person(string n){
    name = n;
    cout<<"Hello "<<name<<"\n";
  }
};

class Person{
  string name;
  Person(string n) : name(n){
    cout<<"Hello "<<name<<"\n";
  }
};

Copy Constructor (available by default)

• Intializes a new object as a copy of an existing object

• Pass by reference (if not it leads to infinite recursion)

• Default copy constructor :

  • Deep copy for primitive types
  • Shallow copy for pointers

class Person{
public:
  string name;
  Person(string n) : name(n) {}

  Person(const Person &p){
    name = p.name;
    cout<<"Copy constructor called\n";
  }
}