C++ compile time error: expected identifier before numeric constant

Question

You cannot do this:

vector<string> name(5); //error in these 2 lines
vector<int> val(5,0);

in a class outside of a method.

You can initialize the data members at the point of declaration, but not with parenthesis (()). Instead, use curly braces ({}):

class Foo {
    vector<string> name = vector<string>(5);
    vector<int> val{vector<int>(5,0)};
};

Before C++11, you need to declare them first, then initialize them e.g in a contructor

class Foo {
    vector<string> name;
    vector<int> val;
 public:
  Foo() : name(5), val(5,0) {}
};