This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 Core Issues List revision 116a. See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official list.

2024-12-19


20. Some clarifications needed for 12.8 para 15

Section: 11.4.5.3  [class.copy.ctor]     Status: TC1     Submitter: unknown     Date: unknown

Issue 1

11.4.5.3 [class.copy.ctor] (From J16/99-0005 = WG21 N1182, "Proposed Resolutions for Core Language Issues 6, 14, 20, 40, and 89")

There are three related sub-issues in this issue, all dealing with the elision of copy constructors as described in 11.4.5.3 [class.copy.ctor] paragraph 15:

  1. The text should make clear that the requirement that the copy constructor be accessible and unambiguous is not relaxed in cases where a call to a copy constructor is elided.
  2. It is not clear from the text that the two optimizations described can be applied transitively, and, if so, the implications for the order of destruction are not spelled out.
  3. The text should exclude applying the function-return optimization if the expression names a static or volatile local object.
Analysis

After discussion in Santa Cruz, the core group decided that sub-issue #1 required no change; the necessity of an accessible and unambiguous copy constructor is made clear in 6.7.7 [class.temporary] paragraph 1 and need not be repeated in this text. The remaining two sub-issues appear to be valid criticisms and should be addressed.

Proposed Resolution (10/99):

[Note: a small portion of this wording is superseded by the resolution of issue 185.]

The paragraph in question should be rewritten as follows. In addition, references to this section should be added to the index under "temporary, elimination of," "elimination of temporary," and "copy, constructor elision."

Here the criteria for elision can be combined to eliminate two calls to the copy constructor of class Thing: the copying of the local automatic object t into the temporary object for the return value of function f() and the copying of that temporary object into object t2. Effectively, the construction of the local object t can be viewed as directly initializing the global object t2, and that object's destruction will occur at program exit. —end example]