Should C++ programmer avoid memset?

Question

I heard a saying that c++ programmers should avoid memset,

class ArrInit {
    //! int a[1024] = { 0 };
    int a[1024];
public:
    ArrInit() {  memset(a, 0         


        

Answer 1

This is an OLD thread, but here's an interesting twist:

class myclass
{
  virtual void somefunc();
};

myclass onemyclass;

memset(&onemyclass,0,sizeof(myclass));

works PERFECTLY well!

However,

myclass *myptr;

myptr=&onemyclass;

memset(myptr,0,sizeof(myclass));

indeed sets the virtuals (i.e somefunc() above) to NULL.

Given that memset is drastically faster than setting to 0 each and every member in a large class, I've been doing the first memset above for ages and never had a problem.

So the really interesting question is how come it works? I suppose that the compiler actually starts to set the zero's BEYOND the virtual table... any idea?