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

320. Question on copy constructor elision example

[Voted into WP at April 2005 meeting.]

Section 6.7.7 [class.temporary] paragraph 2, abridged:

  X f(X);
  void g()
  {
	X a;
	a = f(a);
  }

a=f(a) requires a temporary for either the argument a or the result of f(a) to avoid undesired aliasing of a.

The note seems to imply that an implementation is allowed to omit copying "a" to f's formal argument, or to omit using a temporary for the return value of f. I don't find that license in normative text.

Function f returns an X by value, and in the expression the value is assigned (not copy-constructed) to "a". I don't see how that temporary can be omitted. (See also 11.4.5.3 [class.copy.ctor] p 15)

Since "a" is an lvalue and not a temporary, I don't see how copying "a" to f's formal parameter can be avoided.

Am I missing something, or is 6.7.7 [class.temporary] p 2 misleading?

Proposed resolution (October, 2004):

In 6.7.7 [class.temporary] paragraph 2, change the last sentence as indicated:

On the other hand, the expression a=f(a) requires a temporary for either the argument a or the result of f(a) to avoid undesired aliasing of a the result of f(a), which is then assigned to a.