c++ object initialization and constructor semantics

Question

Is there a difference between the 2 initailizations of an object.

Object obj(constructor_arguments);

or

Object obj = Object(constructor_arguments);

Note that the second initialization is not intended to be a pointer with the new operator. It is intended to be a non heap variable.

In GCC both compile and work fine and I'm wondering if there is actually any difference or if both statements are semantically the same.

Answer 1

Yes there is. The first is the syntax for direct initialization, the second is copy initialization.

Theoretically, the second one calls the copy constructor, but this is subject to optimizations.