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

2823. Implicit undefined behavior when dereferencing pointers

[Accepted as a DR at the November, 2023 meeting.]

Subclause 7.6.2.2 [expr.unary.op] paragraph 1 specifies:

The unary * operator performs indirection. Its operand shall be a prvalue of type “pointer to T”, where T is an object or function type. The operator yields an lvalue of type T denoting the object or function to which the operand points.

It is unclear what happens if the operand does not point to an object or function.

Proposed resolution (approved by CWG 2023-11-08):

Change in 7.6.2.2 [expr.unary.op] paragraph 1 as follows:

The unary * operator performs indirection. Its operand shall be a prvalue of type “pointer to T”, where T is an object or function type. The operator yields an lvalue of type T denoting the object or function to which the operand points. If the operand points to an object or function, the result denotes that object or function; otherwise, the behavior is undefined except as specified in 7.6.1.8 [expr.typeid].