Initializes an aggregate from an initializer list. It is a form of list-initialization(since C++11).
[edit] Syntax T object
= {
arg1, arg2, ... };
(1) T object {
arg1, arg2, ... };
(2) (since C++11) T object
= { .
des1
=
arg1 , .
des2 {
arg2 }
... };
(3) (since C++20) T object { .
des1
=
arg1 , .
des2 {
arg2 }
... };
(4) (since C++20)
1,2) Initializing an aggregate with an ordinary initializer list.
[edit] Definitions [edit] AggregateAn aggregate is one of the following types:
The elements of an aggregate are:
Each initializer clause in a brace-enclosed initializer list is said to appertain to an element of the aggregate being initialized or to an element of one of its subaggregates.
Considering the sequence of initializer clauses, and the sequence of aggregate elements initially formed as the sequence of elements of the aggregate being initialized and potentially modified as described below:
The analysis is complete when all initializer clauses have been exhausted. If any initializer clause remains that does not appertain to an element of the aggregate or one of its subaggregates, the program is ill-formed.
struct S1 { long a, b; }; struct S2 { S1 s, t; }; // Each subaggregate of âxâ is appertained to an initializer clause starting with { S2 x[2] = { // appertains to âx[0]â { {1L, 2L}, // appertains to âx[0].sâ {3L, 4L} // appertains to âx[0].tâ }, // appertains to âx[1]â { {5L, 6L}, // appertains to âx[1].sâ {7L, 8L} // appertains to âx[1].tâ } }; // âxâ and âyâ have the same value (see below) S2 y[2] = {1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 7L, 8L}; // The process of the appertainment analysis of âyâ: // 1. Initializes the aggregate element sequence (x[0], x[1]) and // the initializer clause sequence (1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 7L, 8L). // 2. Starting from the first elements of each sequence, // checks whether 1L appertains to x[0]: // · x[0] is an aggregate. // · 1L does not begin with {. // · 1L is an expression, but it cannot be implicitly converted to S2. // · x[0] has aggregate elements. // 3. 1L cannot appertain to x[0], therefore x[0] is replaced by x[0].s and x[0].t, // the aggregate element sequence becomes (x[0].s, x[0].t, x[1]). // 4. Resumes the appertainment check, but 1L cannot appertain to x[0].s either. // 5. The aggregate element sequence now becomes (x[0].s.a, x[0].s.b, x[0].t, x[1]). // 6. Resumes the appertainment check again: // 1L appertains to x[0].s.a, and 2L appertains to x[0].s.b. // 7. The rest of the appertainment analysis works similarly. char cv[4] = {'a', 's', 'd', 'f', 0}; // Error: too many initializer clauses[edit] Initialization process [edit] Determining element kind
The effects of aggregate initialization are:
1) Determine the explicitly initialized elements of the aggregate as follows:
union u { int a; const char* b; }; u a = {1}; // OK: explicitly initializes member `a` u b = {0, "asdf"}; // error: explicitly initializes two members u c = {"asdf"}; // error: int cannot be initialized by "asdf" // C++20 designated initializer lists u d = {.b = "asdf"}; // OK: can explicitly initialize a non-initial member u e = {.a = 1, .b = "asdf"}; // error: explicitly initializes two members2)
Initialize each element of the aggregate
in the element order. That is, all value computations and side effects associated with a given element are sequenced before those of any element that follows it in order(since C++11).
[edit] Explicitly initialized elementsFor each explicitly initialized element:
D
is the designated initializer clause naming a member of the anonymous union member. There shall be only one such designated initializer clause.struct C { union { int a; const char* p; }; int x; } c = {.a = 1, .x = 3}; // initializes c.a with 1 and c.x with 3
struct A { int x; struct B { int i; int j; } b; } a = {1, {2, 3}}; // initializes a.x with 1, a.b.i with 2, a.b.j with 3 struct base1 { int b1, b2 = 42; }; struct base2 { base2() { b3 = 42; } int b3; }; struct derived : base1, base2 { int d; }; derived d1{{1, 2}, {}, 4}; // initializes d1.b1 with 1, d1.b2 with 2, // d1.b3 with 42, d1.d with 4 derived d2{{}, {}, 4}; // initializes d2.b1 with 0, d2.b2 with 42, // d2.b3 with 42, d2.d with 4[edit] Implicitly initialized elements
For a non-union aggregate, each element that is not an explicitly initialized element is initialized as follows:
struct S { int a; const char* b; int c; int d = b[a]; }; // initializes ss.a with 1, // ss.b with "asdf", // ss.c with the value of an expression of the form int{} (that is, 0), // and ss.d with the value of ss.b[ss.a] (that is, 's') S ss = {1, "asdf"};
If the aggregate is a union and the initializer list is empty, then
The number of elements in an array of unknown bound initialized with a brace-enclosed initializer list is the number of explicitly initialized elements of the array. An array of unknown bound cannot be initialized with {}.
int x[] = {1, 3, 5}; // x has 3 elements struct Y { int i, j, k; }; Y y[] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}; // y has only 2 elements: // 1, 2 and 3 appertain to y[0], // 4, 5 and 6 appertain to y[1] int z[] = {} // Error: cannot declare an array without any elementDesignated initializers
The syntax forms (3,4) are known as designated initializers: each designator must name a direct non-static data member of T, and all designator s used in the expression must appear in the same order as the data members of T.
struct A { int x; int y; int z; }; A a{.x = 1, .y = 2, .z = 3}; // ok A b{.y = 2, .z = 3, .x = 1}; // error; designator order does not match declaration order
Each direct non-static data member named by the designated initializer is initialized from the corresponding brace-or-equals initializer that follows the designator. Narrowing conversions are prohibited.
Designated initializer can be used to initialize a union into the state other than the first. Only one initializer may be provided for a union.
union u { int a; const char* b; }; u f = {.b = "asdf"}; // OK, active member of the union is b u g = {.a = 1, .b = "asdf"}; // Error, only one initializer may be provided
For a non-union aggregate, elements for which a designated initializer is not provided are initialized the same as described above for when the number of initializer clauses is less than the number of members (default member initializers where provided, empty list-initialization otherwise):
struct A { string str; int n = 42; int m = -1; }; A{.m = 21} // Initializes str with {}, which calls the default constructor // then initializes n with = 42 // then initializes m with = 21 struct A { int x; int y; int z; }; A a{.x = 1, .z = 2}; // ok, b.y initialized to 0 A b{.y = 2, .x = 1}; // error; designator order does not match declaration order A c{.y = 2}; // ok, c.x and c.z are initialized to 0 constexpr A d{.z = 2}; // can be used with constexpr, as opposed to: constexpr A d; static_assert(d.x == 0 && d.y == 0); // d.x and d.y are initialized to 0
If the aggregate that is initialized with a designated initializer clause has an anonymous union member, the corresponding designated initializer must name one of the members of that anonymous union.
Note: out-of-order designated initialization, nested designated initialization, mixing of designated initializers and regular initializers, and designated initialization of arrays are all supported in the C programming language, but are not allowed in C++.
struct A { int x, y; }; struct B { struct A a; }; struct A a = {.y = 1, .x = 2}; // valid C, invalid C++ (out of order) int arr[3] = {[1] = 5}; // valid C, invalid C++ (array) struct B b = {.a.x = 0}; // valid C, invalid C++ (nested) struct A a = {.x = 1, 2}; // valid C, invalid C++ (mixed)(since C++20) [edit] Character arrays
Arrays of ordinary character types (char, signed char, unsigned char), char8_t(since C++20), char16_t, char32_t(since C++11), or wchar_t can be initialized from ordinary string literals, UTF-8 string literals(since C++20), UTF-16 string literals, UTF-32 string literals(since C++11), or wide string literals, respectively, optionally enclosed in braces. Additionally, an array of char or unsigned char may be initialized by a UTF-8 string literal, optionally enclosed in braces(since C++20). Successive characters of the string literal (which includes the implicit terminating null character) initialize the elements of the array, with an integral conversion if necessary for the source and destination value(since C++20). If the size of the array is specified and it is larger than the number of characters in the string literal, the remaining characters are zero-initialized.
char a[] = "abc"; // equivalent to char a[4] = {'a', 'b', 'c', '\0'}; // unsigned char b[3] = "abc"; // Error: initializer string too long unsigned char b[5]{"abc"}; // equivalent to unsigned char b[5] = {'a', 'b', 'c', '\0', '\0'}; wchar_t c[] = {L"коÑка"}; // optional braces // equivalent to wchar_t c[6] = {L'к', L'о', L'Ñ', L'к', L'а', L'\0'};[edit] Notes
An aggregate class or array may include non-aggregate public bases(since C++17), members, or elements, which are initialized as described above (e.g. copy-initialization from the corresponding initializer clause).
Until C++11, narrowing conversions were permitted in aggregate initialization, but they are no longer allowed.
Until C++11, aggregate initialization could only be used in variable definition, and could not be used in a constructor initializer list, a new-expression, or temporary object creation due to syntax restrictions.
In C, character array of size one less than the size of the string literal may be initialized from a string literal; the resulting array is not null-terminated. This is not allowed in C++.
[edit] Example#include <array> #include <cstdio> #include <string> struct S { int x; struct Foo { int i; int j; int a[3]; } b; }; int main() { S s1 = {1, {2, 3, {4, 5, 6}}}; S s2 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}; // same, but with brace elision S s3{1, {2, 3, {4, 5, 6}}}; // same, using direct-list-initialization syntax S s4{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}; // error until CWG 1270: // brace elision only allowed with equals sign int ar[] = {1, 2, 3}; // ar is int[3] // char cr[3] = {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd'}; // too many initializer clauses char cr[3] = {'a'}; // array initialized as {'a', '\0', '\0'} int ar2d1[2][2] = {{1, 2}, {3, 4}}; // fully-braced 2D array: {1, 2} // {3, 4} int ar2d2[2][2] = {1, 2, 3, 4}; // brace elision: {1, 2} // {3, 4} int ar2d3[2][2] = {{1}, {2}}; // only first column: {1, 0} // {2, 0} std::array<int, 3> std_ar2{{1, 2, 3}}; // std::array is an aggregate std::array<int, 3> std_ar1 = {1, 2, 3}; // brace-elision okay // int ai[] = {1, 2.0}; // narrowing conversion from double to int: // error in C++11, okay in C++03 std::string ars[] = {std::string("one"), // copy-initialization "two", // conversion, then copy-initialization {'t', 'h', 'r', 'e', 'e'}}; // list-initialization union U { int a; const char* b; }; U u1 = {1}; // OK, first member of the union // U u2 = {0, "asdf"}; // error: too many initializers for union // U u3 = {"asdf"}; // error: invalid conversion to int [](...) { std::puts("Garbage collecting unused variables... Done."); } ( s1, s2, s3, s4, ar, cr, ar2d1, ar2d2, ar2d3, std_ar2, std_ar1, u1 ); } // aggregate struct base1 { int b1, b2 = 42; }; // non-aggregate struct base2 { base2() : b3(42) {} int b3; }; // aggregate in C++17 struct derived : base1, base2 { int d; }; derived d1{{1, 2}, {}, 4}; // d1.b1 = 1, d1.b2 = 2, d1.b3 = 42, d1.d = 4 derived d2{{}, {}, 4}; // d2.b1 = 0, d2.b2 = 42, d2.b3 = 42, d2.d = 4
Output:
Garbage collecting unused variables... Done.[edit] Defect reports
The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.
DR Applied to Behavior as published Correct behavior CWG 413 C++98 anonymous bit-fields were initialized in aggregate initialization they are ignored CWG 737 C++98 when a character array is initialized with a string literalRetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
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