Dereferencing this in constructors initialiser list

[Martin Zimmermann]

Hi.

Is it allowed to dereference 'this' in a constructors initialiser list
to initialize a reference? (for later use)

Is this code legal or illegal?

class Foo;

class Bar
{
public:
Bar(Foo& foo)
: foo_(foo)
{
}
private:
Foo& foo_;
};

class Foo
{
public:
Foo()
: bar_(*this)
{
}
private:
Bar bar_;
};

int main()
{
}

Bye.

 

[tom_usenet]

Hi.

Is it allowed to dereference 'this' in a constructors initialiser list
to initialize a reference? (for later use)

Yes. You can even do that before the constructor has even started. You
can only use that lvalue to access things that have already been
initialized (such as earlier base classes, earlier member variables
(in class declaration order)).

This is perfectly valid:

Foo* mem = static_cast<Foo*>(malloc(sizeof *mem));
assert(mem);
Foo& f = *mem;
//don't use f until it has been constructed!
new(mem) Foo();
//now you can use f safely.

Tom

 

[Rob Williscroft]

Martin Zimmermann wrote in in
comp.lang.c++:

Hi.

Is it allowed to dereference 'this' in a constructors initialiser list
to initialize a reference? (for later use)

Is this code legal or illegal?

class Foo;

class Bar
{
public:
Bar(Foo& foo)
: foo_(foo)
{
}
private:
Foo& foo_;
};

class Foo
{
public:
Foo()
: bar_(*this)
{
}
private:
Bar bar_;
};

int main()
{
}

Bye.

Simple logic should suffice. In order to initialize the bar_
subobject 'this' must be dereferenced (this->bar_) anyway,
so yes you can.

Rob.