Homework 12

Answer the following questions on Copy Constructors:

1. What is a copy constructor ?
2. Describe two instances in which we NEED a copy constructor (ie when not having it could result in errors) ?
3. How many parameters does a copy constructor take ?
4. What are the types of the parameters ?
5. What is the return type of a copy constructor ?

Solution

1. A copy constructor is a function called automatically by the compiler to create a copy of an object.
2. • When we want to pass an object as a value parameter to a function and the object has dynamic variables.
   • When we initialize a new object (at the point of definition) using an existing one (eg. Node a; Node b=a; ), and the object contains dynamic variables.
3. 1
4. A reference to the same type as the object itself.
5. There is no return type since it is a constructor.