CWG Issue 2327

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

2327. Copy elision for direct-initialization with a conversion function

Section: 9.4 [dcl.init] Status: drafting Submitter: Richard Smith Date: 2016-09-30

Consider an example like:

  struct Cat {};
  struct Dog { operator Cat(); };

  Dog d;
  Cat c(d);

This goes to 9.4 [dcl.init] bullet 17.6.2:

Otherwise, if the initialization is direct-initialization, or if it is copy-initialization where the cv-unqualified version of the source type is the same class as, or a derived class of, the class of the destination, constructors are considered. The applicable constructors are enumerated (12.2.2.4 [over.match.ctor]), and the best one is chosen through overload resolution (12.2 [over.match]). The constructor so selected is called to initialize the object, with the initializer expression or expression-list as its argument(s). If no constructor applies, or the overload resolution is ambiguous, the initialization is ill-formed.

Overload resolution selects the move constructor of Cat. Initializing the Cat&& parameter of the constructor results in a temporary, per 9.4.4 [dcl.init.ref] bullet 5.2.1.2. This precludes the possitiblity of copy elision for this case.

This seems to be an oversight in the wording change for guaranteed copy elision. We should presumably be simultaneously considering both constructors and conversion functions in this case, as we would for copy-initialization, but we'll need to make sure that doesn't introduce any novel problems or ambiguities.