Constructors and Destructors in CPP

In C++, constructors and destructors are special member functions that are used to create and destroy objects of a class, respectively. In this blog, we will explore constructors and destructors in more detail.

Constructors A constructor is a special member function that is called when an object of a class is created. The purpose of a constructor is to initialize the data members of the object. Constructors have the same name as the class and no return type, not even void.

In C++, there are two types of constructors: default constructors and parameterized constructors. A default constructor is a constructor that takes no arguments, while a parameterized constructor takes one or more arguments.

Here is an example of a default constructor for the ‘Person’ class:

csharpCopy codeclass Person {
    private:
        string name;
        int age;
    public:
        Person() {
            name = "";
            age = 0;
        }
        void setName(string name) {
            this->name = name;
        }
        string getName() {
            return name;
        }
        void setAge(int age) {
            this->age = age;
        }
        int getAge() {
            return age;
        }
};

In this example, we have defined a default constructor for the ‘Person’ class. The default constructor initializes the ‘name’ and ‘age’ data members to empty string and zero, respectively.

Here is an example of a parameterized constructor for the ‘Person’ class:

csharpCopy codeclass Person {
    private:
        string name;
        int age;
    public:
        Person(string name, int age) {
            this->name = name;
            this->age = age;
        }
        void setName(string name) {
            this->name = name;
        }
        string getName() {
            return name;
        }
        void setAge(int age) {
            this->age = age;
        }
        int getAge() {
            return age;
        }
};

In this example, we have defined a parameterized constructor for the ‘Person’ class. The parameterized constructor takes two arguments – a ‘name’ string and an ‘age’ integer – and initializes the ‘name’ and ‘age’ data members with these values.

Destructors A destructor is a special member function that is called when an object of a class is destroyed. The purpose of a destructor is to release any resources that the object has acquired during its lifetime. Destructors have the same name as the class with a tilde (~) symbol before it and no arguments or return types.

Here is an example of a destructor for the ‘Person’ class:

csharpCopy codeclass Person {
    private:
        string name;
        int age;
    public:
        Person(string name, int age) {
            this->name = name;
            this->age = age;
        }
        ~Person() {
            cout << name << " has been destroyed." << endl;
        }
        void setName(string name) {
            this->name = name;
        }
        string getName() {
            return name;
        }
        void setAge(int age) {
            this->age = age;
        }
        int getAge() {
            return age;
        }
};

In this example, we have defined a destructor for the ‘Person’ class. The destructor simply prints a message indicating that the object has been destroyed.

Constructors and Destructors in Action Here is an example of how constructors and destructors can be used in C++:

cCopy codeint main() {
    Person p1; // Calls the default constructor
    p1.setName("John");
    p1.setAge(30);
    cout << p1.getName() << " is " << p1.getAge() << " years