State of “memset” functionality in C++ with modern compilers

Question

Context:

A while ago, I stumbled upon this 2001 DDJ article by Alexandrescu: http://www.ddj.com/cpp/184403799

It\'s about comparing various ways to initialize

Answer 1

If you have to allocate your memory as well as initialize it, I would:

• Use calloc instead of malloc
• Change as much of my default values to be zero as possible (ex: let my default enumeration value be zero; or if a boolean variable's default value is 'true', store it's inverse value in the structure)

The reason for this is that calloc zero-initializes memory for you. While this will involve the overhead for zeroing memory, most compilers are likely to have this routine highly-optimized -- more optimized that malloc/new with a call to memcpy.