To initialize non-static members of a class you should:

• Use default member initialization for providing default values for members of classes with multiple constructors that would use a common initializer for those members (see [3] and [4] in the following code).
• Use default member initialization for constants, both static and non-static (see [1] and [2] in the following code).
• Use the constructor initializer list to initialize members that don't have default values, but depend on constructor parameters (see [5] and [6] in the following code).
• Use assignment in constructors when the other options are not possible (examples include initializing data members with pointer this, checking constructor parameter values, and throwing exceptions prior to initializing members with those values or self-references of two non-static data members).

The following example shows these forms of initialization:

    struct Control 
    { 
      const int DefaultHeigh = 14;                  // [1] 
      const int DefaultWidth = 80;                  // [2] 

      TextVAligment valign = TextVAligment::Middle; // [3] 
      TextHAligment halign = TextHAligment::Left;   // [4] 

      std::string text; 

      Control(std::string const & t) : text(t)       // [5] 
      {} 

      Control(std::string const & t, 
        TextVerticalAligment const va, 
        TextHorizontalAligment const ha):  
      text(t), valign(va), halign(ha)                 // [6] 
      {} 
    };