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

2024-10-26

2040. trailing-return-type no longer ambiguous

[Adopted at the February, 2016 meeting.]

According to 9.3 [dcl.decl] paragraph 5,

The type-id in a trailing-return-type includes the longest possible sequence of abstract-declarators. [Note: This resolves the ambiguous binding of array and function declarators. [Example:

  auto f()->int(*)[4]; // function returning a pointer to array[4] of int
                       // not function returning array[4] of pointer to int

—end example] —end note]

However, the grammar has changed since that rule and example were added; because trailing-return-type can only appear at the top level, there is no longer any potential ambiguity.

Proposed resolution (September, 2015):

Delete 9.3 [dcl.decl] paragraph 5:

The optional attribute-specifier-seq in a trailing-return-type appertains to the indicated return type. The type-id in a trailing-return-type includes the longest possible sequence of abstract-declarators. [Note: This resolves the ambiguous binding of array and function declarators. [Example:

  auto f()->int(*)[4]; // function returning a pointer to array[4] of int
                       // not function returning array[4] of pointer to int

—end example] —end note]