I was thinking about writing an algorithm (a graph traversal algorithm) to determine the order of execution of the constructors in a given class-hierarchy (in C++).
This is how I was modelling the problem:
- I am assuming there is only a default constructor in every class.
- Every node represents a class, and every node has a list of directed edges.
- Every edge points to the parent class. Every edge has a value of 0 or 1: 0 means the inheritance is virtual and 1 means the inheritance is non-virtual.
- The list of edges in the node are ordered in the same order as they are declared in the class definition.
To come up with the algorithm, I tried to know the exact order in which the C++ compiler calls the constructors, so I went through this:
Link
After reading it, I couldn’t quite understand what this statement meant:
They are executed in the order they appear in a depth-first left-to-right traversal of the graph of base classes, where left to right refer to the order of appearance of base class names.
To understand it I also tried to read the answers to a similar question on Stackoverflow:
Link
But I wasn’t able to understand how the calls for the constructors are done when cases of virtual inheritance arise.
Can someone provide a better explanation for the order in which the constructors get called?
Source: Windows Questions C++
