•Constructors and Destructors

Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,

Engineering College Ajmer
Constructors
 A special member function used to initialize the
objects of its class.
 Characteristics of constructors-
 Its name is the same as the class name.
 Should be declared in the public section.
 Invoked automatically when the objects are created.
 Don't have return types, not even void.

Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,

Engineering College Ajmer
Types of constructors
 Default constructors- take zero arguments.
 Parameterized constructors- take one or more
arguments.
 Copy constructors- declare and initialize an object
from another object.
 Dynamic constructors- allocate sufficient amount of
memory while creating objects.

Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,

Engineering College Ajmer
Default constructors
 For example
class point
{
int x,y;
public:
point() // Default constructor defined
{
x=0;
y=0;
}
---------
};
point p; // Default constructor automatically called and initialize x and y to zero for the
object p.
 If no such constructor is defined in a class, then
compiler provides a default constructor.
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Parameterized constructors
 Example-
class point
{
int x, y;
public:
point() // if we define other constructors then default constructor must be
define.
{ }
point(int a, int b); // parameterized constructor
{ x=a; y=b; }
};
point p1(10,20); // parameterized constructor called
int num1, num2;
cout<<“Enter the values of num1 and num2”<<“\n”;
cin>>num1>>num2;
point p2(num1, num2); //dynamic initialization of object.
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Copy constructors
 A copy constructor takes a reference to an object of
the same class as an argument.
 Example-
class product
{
int code;
public:
product(){ } // default constructor
product(int x) //parameterized constructor
{ code=x; }
product(product &y) //copy constructor
{ code=y.code; } //copy the value
void display(void)
{ cout<<code<<“\n”; }
};
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Copy constructors
int main()
{
product p1(10); // parameterized constructor called
product p2(p1); //copy constructor called
product p3=p1; //again copy constructor called
p1.display();
p2.display();
p3.display();
return 0;
}
output:
10
10
10

 When no copy constructor is defined in the program, the

compiler supplies its own copy constructor.
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Dynamic constructors
 Example-
class string
{
char *name;
int length;
public:
string ( ) //default constructor
{
length=0;
name= new char[length+1]; // one extra for ‘\0’
}
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Dynamic constructors
string( char *s) //dynamic constructor
{
length=strlen(s);
name=new char[length+1];
strcpy(name,s);
}
void display(void)
{ cout<<name<<“\n”; }
};
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Dynamic constructors
int main( )
{
string city1(“Ajmer”); //allocate six bytes of memory
string city2(“Shri Ganganagar”); //allocate 16 bytes memory
city1.display();
city2.display();
return 0;
}
 Output:
Ajmer
Shri Ganganagar
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Destructors
 A special member function of the class that is used
to destroy the objects that have been created by
constructor.
 Characteristics of destructors:
Its name is same as class name but preceded by
tilde(~).
It never takes any argument and does not return
any value.
It is invoked implicitly by the compiler upon exit
from the program or block or function.
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Destructors
 Use of destructors are to free the allocated
memory to objects at run time. So, that the freed
memory can be reuse for another program or
objects.
 Memory allocated to an object by new operator in
constructor function.
 Memory de-allocated by delete operator in
destructor function.

Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,

Engineering College Ajmer
Destructors
 Example-
class sample
{
char *t;
public:
sample(int length)
{
t=new char[length];
cout<<“Character array of length” <<length
<<“created”;
}
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Destructors
~sample()
{ delete t;
cout<<“\n Memory de-allocated for the character
array”; }
};
int main()
{ sample s(10);
return 0;
}
Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,
Engineering College Ajmer
Destructors
 Output:
Character array of length 10 created
Memory de-allocated for the character array

Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,

Engineering College Ajmer
Thank You

Prepared by: Anil Kumar Tailor, Assistant Prof.,

Engineering College Ajmer