This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 Core Issues List revision 115e. See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official list.

2024-11-11

1125. Unclear definition of “potential constant expression”

[Voted into the WP at the November, 2010 meeting as paper N3218.]

In the definition of “potential constant expression” in 7.7 [expr.const] paragraph 6, it is unclear how “arbitrary” the substitution of the function parameters is. Does it mean “there exists a value for which the result is a constant expression” or does it mean “for all possible values, the result needs to be a constant expression?” Example:

    constexpr int f(int x){ return x + 1; }

is a constant expression under the first interpretation, but not under the second (because overflow occurs for x == INT_MAX, cf 7.7 [expr.const] paragraph 2 bullet 5). The answer also affects expressions such as:

    constexpr int f2(bool v) { return v ? throw 0 : 0; }
    constexpr int f3(bool v) { return v && (throw 0, 0); }

See also issue 1129.