Right way to conditionally initialize a C++ member variable?

Question

I\'m sure this is a really simple question. The following code shows what I\'m trying to do:

class MemberClass {
public:
    MemberClass(int abc){ }
};

clas         


        

Answer 1

To have the initialization happen after other stuff happens, you do indeed need to use pointers, something like this:

class MyClass {
public:
    MemberClass * m_pClass;
    MyClass(int xyz) {
        do_something(); // this must happen before m_class is created
        if(xyz == 42)
            m_pClass = new MemberClass(12);
        else
            m_pClass = new MemberClass(32);
    }
};

The only difference is that you'll need to access member variables as m_pClass->counter instead of m_class.counter, and delete m_pClass in the destructor.