Thread: Unique pointer and a vector in the class constructor

Hello,

I was mildly surprised when I realized that I cannot initialize the vector directly like in the commented out command, but have to use a default constructor. Surprised because initialization directly via the constructor (i.e. without a unique pointer) works fine. I am doing this right, or is there a better way? Because doing it this way on a class with many vectors bloats the code.

Code:

#include <iostream>
#include <memory>
#include <vector>

struct Gauge
{
    std::vector<int> Dial;
    Gauge() = default;
    Gauge(std::vector<int> dial) : Dial(dial) {}
};

int main ()
{
    // auto gauge = std::make_unique<Gauge> ({1,2});
    auto gauge = std::make_unique<Gauge> ();
    gauge->Dial = {1,2};
    std::cout << gauge->Dial[0] << '\n';
}