TITLE: ctor, __ct, constructor

(Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++, 11 Oct 96)

PROBLEM: Christopher Vickery <vickery@babbage.cs.qc.edu>

My questions are: 1. Who knows where this word "ctor" comes
from (besides Stroustrup, who probably doesn't read this group)?
and 2. How do you pronounce it? ("C to R" or C-tor, or what?)


RESPONSE: bs@research.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup)

I actually do read this group - at least some of the time
- and occationally post here. Ctor and its cousin Dtor are
simple abbreviations of Constructor and Destructor. So typically
`Ctor' is pronounced `Constructor,' I have heard, and sometimes
even used the pronounciation 'ctor,' but never `C to R.'

Abbreviations occur naturally when you write a word a lot.
That's what happened with Constructor -> Ctor. I also needed
a name for constructors within my compiler and I used ctor
(this was later further abbreviated to the __ct you find in
the ARM). Other abbreviations of that vintage that keep turning
up are vptr and vtbl.