Pro/con: Initializing a variable in a conditional statement

Question

In C++ you can initialize a variable in an if statement, like so:

if (CThing* pThing = GetThing())
{
}

Why would one consider this bad or g

Answer 1

One reason I don't normally do that is because of the common bug from a missed '=' in a conditional test. I use lint with the error/warnings set to catch those. It will then yell about all assignments inside conditionals.