The Journeyman's Shop: Initialization and Cleanup, Part 3
By Pete Becker, May 01, 1999
It's a simple rule: initialize objects before you use them and clean them up when you're done with them. But sometimes that takes pretty careful planning.
May 1999/The Journeyman's Shop/Figure 1
Topic Issue Appeared In
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All Variables March 1999
What should I initialize it to
How should I initialize it
When should I initialize it
Variables that require scarce resources
How should I dispose of its resources
When should I dispose of its resources
Lifetime and initialization
Global static variables are initialized once,
at program startup
Local static variables are initialized once,
when the block in which they are defined
is first entered
Auto variables are initialized every time the
block in which they are defined is entered
Cleaning up in C
atexit
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Cleaning up in C++: destructors April 1999
Destructors for static objects, both global
and local, are run at program termination,
in reverse order of construction
Destructors for auto objects are run when the
block in which they are defined is exited
by any means, including throwing an
exception
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When the language doesn't do what you need May 1999
Use default 0 initialization to flag variables
that haven't been initialized
Use a function that returns a reference to a
local static object
Use the nifty counter trick
