Constructor in Antithetic.cpp (Ch 6)

[fmincon]

Question about the initialization of the constructor in Antithetic.cpp:

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AntiThetic::AntiThetic(const Wrapper<RandomBase>& innerGenerator )
            : RandomBase(*innerGenerator),
              InnerGenerator(innerGenerator)

Do you mind explaining

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RandomBase(*innerGenerator)

?

From a most basic perspective, I'm having trouble understanding the syntax, because I thought in the initialization of a constructor, the statements that come after the single colon were always in the form of some

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private_member(argument for private_member)

, but RandomBase isn't explicitly a private member of Antithetic, but it's the wrapper type. After reading the top paragraph on page 97 of your book, I am still confused as how this line works. (and what happens if you leave it out?) Also, the way the parameter

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const Wrapper<RandomBase>& innerGenerator

is defined requires the argument innerGenerator to be of class type RandomBase, hence when

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RandomBase(*innerGenerator)

is called, I'm assuming this is just calling a default copy constructor that wasn't explicitly implemented in the original Random2.h... is this line of reasoning correct?

Last but not least, at the end of Chapter 6 when the driver file RandomMain3.cpp is run, an AntiThetic object called GenTwo with argument of type RandomParkMiller called generator is fed into a SimpleMonteCarlo6 object, which invokes the method

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GetGaussians(VariateArray)

. Since the AntiThetic class doesn't have a GetGaussians method, it just uses the one supplied by its base class RandomBase right?

Thank you!

[fmincon]

Oh I think I figured it out. So I forgot that AntiThetic is an inherited class under RandomBase, hence when it is initialized, its parent class also needs to be initialized, especially in this case since RandomBase has a private data member Dimensionality which needs to be fed by the innerGenerator argument. So, when the code

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RandomBase(*innerGenerator)

is run, the default copy class constructor of RandomBase copies the unsigned long Dimensionality private member for the AntiThetic instance being generated. I assume that innerGenerator is a wrapped pointer in this case only because we make it so with the parameter being

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const Wrapper<RandomBase>& innerGenerator

because in the driver file RandomMain3.cpp, the object being fed into the parameter is just a RandomParkMiller object that isn't wrapped (more specifically, it's the pointer of a RandomParkMiller object).

[mj]

that's right.

More generally, any member or base can be initialized in the initializer list by using any of its constructors including default compiler
provided ones.