How to Call a Base Class Constructor in C ?

Calling the Base Class Constructor

While working with inheritance in Java, you can invoke the superclass constructor using super(). This raises the question of how to achieve the same functionality in C .

Specifically, the issue arises when inheriting from a C base class with a non-default constructor. The compiler often warns about the lack of an appropriate default constructor.

Solution: Utilizing the Constructor's Initializer List

Unlike Java, C does not have an explicit super() syntax for calling the base class constructor. Instead, you specify the call in the constructor's initializer list of the derived class. The initializer list appears before the body of the constructor and is used to initialize member variables.

For example, consider the following base class with a constructor that takes a character array as an argument:

class BaseClass {
public:
    BaseClass(char *name);
    ...
};

To call the base class constructor in the derived class, include the call in the initializer list:

class Foo : public BaseClass {
public:
    Foo() : BaseClass("asdf") {}
};

This ensures that the base-class constructor is invoked before any other member initialization occurs. As the base-class constructors take arguments, they must be specified in the initializer list before any member variables are initialized.

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