Re: replicating default constructor's "non-initializing state"
Jason Doucette wrote:
P.S. My default constructor could initialize the variable to all 0's,
but this has two unwanted effects: 1. It slows down code in which
this initialization needn't occur.
Almost certainly by an imperceptible degree.
Agreed.
2. It potentially hides bugs that
would show up if it were left uninitialized as it should be. (This is
similar to how MSVC++'s debugger initializes all variables to 0, which
is silly, since it should initialize them to randomness -- as will
happen in the release build -- to make bugs appear as quickly as
possible).
The debugger doesn't do that, and AFAIK, never has. (I've been hearing this
for many years, and I still don't know how this rumor got started.) When
certain debug options are in effect, the compiler will initialize locals to
certain non-zero patterns.
You are quite right. MSVC++ sets them all to C's in hex, so you can
easily see that they are uninitialized in the debugger window. I
already knew this, as I tested it with a function I made to show the
bits of any data type, so I don't know why I keep thinking they are
set to 0.
The reason that MSVC sets them to all 0xcc is not for easy visibility
(though that's a nice side-benefit). It's because 0xcc is the INT3
opcode in x86, which breaks to the debugger.
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