value initialization

This is the initialization performed when a variable is constructed with an empty initializer.

Syntax

Explanation

Value initialization is performed in these situations:

In all cases, if the empty pair of braces {} is used and T is an aggregate type, aggregate-initialization is performed instead of value-initialization.

If T is a class type that has no default constructor but has a constructor taking std::initializer_list, list-initialization is performed.

The effects of value initialization are:

Notes

A constructor is user-provided if it is user-declared and not explicitly defaulted on its first declaration.

The syntax T object(); does not initialize an object; it declares a function that takes no arguments and returns T. The way to value-initialize a named variable before C++11 was T object = T();, which value-initializes a temporary and then copy-initializes the object: most compilers optimize out the copy in this case.

In C++98 prior to C++03 (which introduced value initialization), the expression new T() was classified as default initialization and specified zero-initialization.

References cannot be value-initialized.

All standard containers (std::vector, std::list, etc) value-initialize their elements when constructed with a single size_type argument or when grown by a call to resize().

Since C++11, value-initializing a class without a user-provided constructor, which has a member of a class type with a user-provided constructor zeroes out the member before calling its constructor:

struct A
{
    int i;
    A() {} // user-provided default ctor, does not initialize i
};
 
struct B { A a; }; // implicitly-defined default ctor
 
std::cout << B().a.i << '\n'; // value-initializes a B temporary
                              // leaves b.a.i uninitialized in C++03
                              // sets b.a.i to zero in C++11
// (note that B{}.a.i leaves b.a.i uninitialized in C++11, but for 
//  a different reason: in post-DR1301 C++11, B{} is aggregate-initialization,
//  which then value-initializes A, which has a user-provided ctor)

Example

#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <iostream>
 
struct T1
{
    int mem1;
    std::string mem2;
}; // implicit default constructor
 
struct T2
{
    int mem1;
    std::string mem2;
    T2(const T2&) {} // user-provided copy constructor
};                   // no default constructor
 
struct T3
{
    int mem1;
    std::string mem2;
    T3() {} // user-provided default constructor
};
 
std::string s{}; // class => default-initialization (the value is "")
 
int main()
{
    int n {};               // scalar => zero-initialization: the value is 0
    double f = double();    // scalar => zero-initialization: the value is 0.0
    int* a = new int[10](); // array => value-initialization of each element
                            //          the value of each element is 0
    T1 t1 {};               // class with implicit default constructor
                            //     t1.mem1 is zero-initialized
                            //     t1.mem2 is default-initialized
//  T2 t2 {};               // error: class with no default constructor
    T3 t3 {};               // class with user-provided default constructor
                            //     t3.mem1 is default-initialized to indeterminate value
                            //     t3.mem2 is default-initialized, the value is ""
    std::vector<int> v(3);  // the value of each element is value-initalized to 0
 
    std::cout << s.size() << ' ' << n << ' ' << f << ' ' << a[9] << ' ' << v[2] << '\n';
    std::cout << t1.mem1 << ' ' << t3.mem1 << '\n';
    delete[] a;
}

0 0 0 0 0
0 4199376

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

See also

• default initialization
• direct initialization
• copy initialization
• list initialization