Copy constructors

A copy constructor of class T is a non-template constructor whose first parameter is T&, const T&, volatile T&, or const volatile T&, and either there are no other parameters, or the rest of the parameters all have default values.

Syntax

Explanation

1. Typical declaration of a copy constructor.
2. Forcing a copy constructor to be generated by the compiler.
3. Avoiding implicit generation of the copy constructor.

The copy constructor is called whenever an object is initialized (by direct-initialization or copy-initialization) from another object of the same type (unless overload resolution selects a better match or the call is elided), which includes.

• initialization: T a = b; or T a(b);, where b is of type T;
• function argument passing: f(a);, where a is of type T and f is void f(T t);
• function return: return a; inside a function such as T f(), where a is of type T, which has no move constructor.

Implicitly-declared copy constructor

If no user-defined copy constructors are provided for a class type (struct, class, or union), the compiler will always declare a copy constructor as a non-explicit inline public member of its class. This implicitly-declared copy constructor has the form T::T(const T&) if all of the following are true:

• each direct and virtual base B of T has a copy constructor whose parameters are B or const B& or const volatile B&;
• each non-static data member M of T of class type or array of class type has a copy constructor whose parameters are M or const M& or const volatile M&.

Otherwise, the implicitly-declared copy constructor is T::T(T&). (Note that due to these rules, the implicitly-declared copy constructor cannot bind to a volatile lvalue argument.).

The implicitly-declared (or defaulted on its first declaration) copy constructor has an exception specification as described in dynamic exception specification (until C++17)exception specification (since C++17).

Deleted implicitly-declared copy constructor

• T has non-static data members that cannot be copied (have deleted, inaccessible, or ambiguous copy constructors);
• T has direct or virtual base class that cannot be copied (has deleted, inaccessible, or ambiguous copy constructors);
• T has direct or virtual base class with a deleted or inaccessible destructor;

Trivial copy constructor

The copy constructor for class T is trivial if all of the following are true:

• it is not user-provided (that is, it is implicitly-defined or defaulted), and if it is defaulted, its signature is the same as implicitly-defined (until C++14);
• T has no virtual member functions;
• T has no virtual base classes;
• the copy constructor selected for every direct base of T is trivial;
• the copy constructor selected for every non-static class type (or array of class type) member of T is trivial;

A trivial copy constructor creates a bytewise copy of the object representation of the argument, and performs no other action. TriviallyCopyable objects can be copied by copying their object representations manually, e.g. with std::memmove. All data types compatible with the C language (POD types) are trivially copyable.

Implicitly-defined copy constructor

If the implicitly-declared copy constructor is neither deleted nor trivial, it is defined (that is, a function body is generated and compiled) by the compiler if odr-used. For union types, the implicitly-defined copy constructor copies the object representation (as by std::memmove). For non-union class types (class and struct), the constructor performs full member-wise copy of the object's bases and non-static members, in their initialization order, using direct initialization.

Notes

In many situations, copy constructors are optimized out even if they would produce observable side-effects, see copy elision.

Example

struct A
{
    int n;
    A(int n = 1) : n(n) { }
    A(const A& a) : n(a.n) { } // user-defined copy ctor
};
 
struct B : A
{
    // implicit default ctor B::B()
    // implicit copy ctor B::B(const B&)
};
 
struct C : B
{
     C() : B() { }
 private:
     C(const C&); // non-copyable, C++98 style
};
 
int main()
{
    A a1(7);
    A a2(a1); // calls the copy ctor
    B b;
    B b2 = b;
    A a3 = b; // conversion to A& and copy ctor
    volatile A va(10);
    // A a4 = va; // compile error
 
    C c;
    // C c2 = c; // compile error
}

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.