If you try to implement a class in C, you always end up with duplicated cleanup code between your "constructor" and your "destructor". Being able to jump from t

If you try to implement a class in C, you always end up with duplicated cleanup code between your "constructor" and your "destructor". Being able to jump from the constructor to the corresponding part of the destructor when the construction of a subobject fails would get rid of this often buggy/untested secondary code path. Some idioms have been developed over time, such as first initializing in a failsafe manner all the object's fields to a value that prevents deinitialization, but they add complexity to the code where it is not needed.