What are the rules for calling the superclass constructor?

Question

What are the C++ rules for calling the superclass constructor from a subclass one?

For example, I know in Java, you must do it as the first line of the subclass cons

Answer 1

In C++, the no-argument constructors for all superclasses and member variables are called for you, before entering your constructor. If you want to pass them arguments, there is a separate syntax for this called "constructor chaining", which looks like this:

class Sub : public Base
{
  Sub(int x, int y)
  : Base(x), member(y)
  {
  }
  Type member;
};

If anything run at this point throws, the bases/members which had previously completed construction have their destructors called and the exception is rethrown to to the caller. If you want to catch exceptions during chaining, you must use a function try block:

class Sub : public Base
{
  Sub(int x, int y)
  try : Base(x), member(y)
  {
    // function body goes here
  } catch(const ExceptionType &e) {
    throw kaboom();
  }
  Type member;
};

In this form, note that the try block is the body of the function, rather than being inside the body of the function; this allows it to catch exceptions thrown by implicit or explicit member and base class initializations, as well as during the body of the function. However, if a function catch block does not throw a different exception, the runtime will rethrow the original error; exceptions during initialization cannot be ignored.