Initialization of variables: Directly or in the constructor? [duplicate]

Answer 1

There's one potentially significant difference in some cases.

Instance initializers are executed before the base class constructor is executed. So if the base class constructor invokes any virtual methods which are overridden in the derived class, that method will see the difference. Usually this shouldn't be a noticeable difference, however - as invoking virtual methods in a constructor is almost always a bad idea.

In terms of clarity, if you initialize the variable at the point of declaration, it makes it very clear that the value doesn't depend on any constructor parameters. On the other hand, keeping all the initialization together helps readability too, IMO. I would try to make sure that wherever possible, if you have multiple constructors they all delegate to one "master" constructor which does all the "real" initialization - which means you'll only put those assignments in one place either way.

Sample code to demonstrate the difference:

using System;

class Base
{
    public Base()
    {
        Console.WriteLine(ToString());
    }
}

class Derived : Base
{
    private int x = 5;
    private int y;

    public Derived()
    {
        y = 5;
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return string.Format("x={0}, y={1}", x, y);
    }
}

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Prints x=5, y=0
        new Derived();
    }
}