Special member functions in C++ are functions which the compiler will automatically generate if they are used, but not declared explicitly by the programmer. The special member functions are:
- Default constructor (if no other constructor is explicitly declared)
- Copy constructor if no move constructor or move assignment operator is explicitly declared.
- If a destructor is declared generation of a copy constructor is deprecated.
- Move constructor if no copy constructor, move assignment operator or destructor is explicitly declared.
- Copy assignment operator if no move constructor or move assignment operator is explicitly declared.
- If a destructor is declared generation of a copy assignment operator is deprecated.
- Move assignment operator if no copy constructor, copy assignment operator or destructor is explicitly declared.
- Destructor
In these cases the compiler generated versions of these functions perform a memberwise operation. For example the compiler generated destructor will destroy each sub-object (base class or member) of the object.
The compiler generated functions will be public, non-virtual and the copy constructor and assignment operators will receive const& parameters (and not be of the alternative legal forms).
Read more about Special Member Functions: Example, Signatures, C++98
Famous quotes containing the words special, member and/or functions:
“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is
all.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Behind the concept of woman’s strangeness is the idea that a woman may do anything: she is below society, not bound by its law, unpredictable; an attribute given to every member of the league of the unfortunate.”
—Christina Stead (1902–1983)
“The mind is a finer body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing, excluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the brain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring, comparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is the mystery of generation repeated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)