Do the parentheses after the type name make a difference with new?

Question

If \'Test\' is an ordinary class, is there any difference between:

Test* test = new Test;

and

Test* test = new Test();
         


        

Answer 1

new Thing(); is explicit that you want a constructor called whereas new Thing; is taken to imply you don't mind if the constructor isn't called.

If used on a struct/class with a user-defined constructor, there is no difference. If called on a trivial struct/class (e.g. struct Thing { int i; };) then new Thing; is like malloc(sizeof(Thing)); whereas new Thing(); is like calloc(sizeof(Thing)); - it gets zero initialized.

The gotcha lies in-between:

struct Thingy {
  ~Thingy(); // No-longer a trivial class
  virtual WaxOn();
  int i;
};

The behavior of new Thingy; vs new Thingy(); in this case changed between C++98 and C++2003. See Michael Burr's explanation for how and why.