Nonstatic member as a default argument of a nonstatic member function

Question

struct X
{
   X():mem(42){}
   void f(int param = mem) //ERROR
   {
      //do something
   }
private: 
   int mem;
};

Can anyone give me just one

Answer 1

Default arguments have to be known at compile-time. When you talk about something like a function invocation, then the function is known at compile-time, even if the return value isn't, so the compiler can generate that code, but when you default to a member variable, the compiler doesn't know where to find that instance at compile-time, meaning that it would effectively have to pass a parameter (this) to find mem. Notice that you can't do something like void func(int i, int f = g(i)); and the two are effectively the same restriction.

I also think that this restriction is silly. But then, C++ is full of silly restrictions.

Answer 2

For one reason, because f is public, but mem is private. As such, code like this:

int main() { 
    X x;
    x.f();
    return 0;
}

...would involve outside code retrieving X's private data.

Aside from that, it would (or at least could) also make code generation a bit tricky. Normally, if the compiler is going to use a default argument, it gets the value it's going to pass as part of the function declaration. Generating code to pass that value as a parameter is trivial. When you might be passing a member of an object (possibly nested arbitrarily deeply) and then add in things like the possibility of it being a dependent name in a template, that might (for example) name another object with a conversion to the correct target type, and you have a recipe for making code generation pretty difficult. I don't know for sure, but I suspect somebody thought about things like that, and decided it was better to stay conservative, and possibly open thins up later, if a good reason was found to do so. Given the number of times I've seen problems arise from it, I'd guess it'll stay the way it is for a long time, simply because it rarely causes problems.

Answer 3

As all the other answers just discuss the problem, I thought I would post a solution.

As used in other languages without default arguments (Eg C# pre 4.0)

Simply use overloading to provide the same result:

struct X
{
   X():mem(42){}
   void f(int param)
   {
      //do something
   }
   void f()
   {
      f(mem);
   }
private: 
   int mem;
};