Initializing in constructors, best practice?

Question

I\'ve been programming in C++ a while and I\'ve used both methods:

class Stuff {
public:
     Stuff( int nr ) : n( nr ) { }
private:
     int n;
}
         


        

Answer 1

One big advantage to using initializers: If an exception is thrown anywhere within the initializer list, the destructors will be called for those members that had already been initialized -- and only for those members.

When you use the contructor body to initialize the object, it's up to you to handle exceptions properly and unwind the object as appropriate. This is usually much harder to get right.