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


2375. Multiple redeclarations of constexpr static data members

Section: 11.4.9.3  [class.static.data]     Status: NAD     Submitter: Mike Miller     Date: 2018-02-21

According to 11.4.9.3 [class.static.data] paragraph 3,

An inline static data member may be defined in the class definition and may specify a brace-or-equal-initializer. If the member is declared with the constexpr specifier, it may be redeclared in namespace scope with no initializer (this usage is deprecated; see _N4778_.D.4 [depr.static_constexpr]).

The out-of-class declaration of a static data member was formerly a definition and thus limited to occurring only once. This limitation was lost when the in-class declaration of inline static data members became the definition; the current specification has no apparent prohibition against multiple out-of-class declarations of a constexpr static data member. Should the restriction be reinstated?

Rationale (November, 2018):

Current implementations support this usage and it does not appear to cause any problems.