What does the ":" mean in the following statement?

[Jennifer Helle]

class FloatingLeg
{
public:
FloatingLeg(map <double, double> floatLegRate, double floatLegBasis, int payFrequency)
:floatLegRate_( floatLegRate), floatLegBasis_( floatLegBasis), payFrequency_(p ayFrequency){}

....}

[hype261]

Jennifer,

What you are looking at there is an initialization list.

The class has member variables called

floatLegReate_, floatLegBasis_ , and payFrequency_

What you are doing is initializing these member variables to the arguments sent into the constructor. This way of constructing your class is more efficient than doing this.

class FloatingLeg
{
public:
FloatingLeg(map<double, double> floatLegRate, double floatLegBasis, int payFrequency)
{
floatLegRate_ = floatLegRate;
floatLegBasis_ = floatLegBasis;
payFrequency_ = payFrequency;
}
};

[Jennifer Helle]

Understood. Thank you very much.