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

439. Guarantees on casting pointer back to cv-qualified version of original type

[Voted into WP at April 2005 meeting.]

Paragraph 7.6.1.9 [expr.static.cast] paragraph 10 says that:

A value of type pointer to object converted to "pointer to cv void" and back to the original pointer type will have its original value.

That guarantee should be stronger. In particular, given:

  T* p1 = new T;
  const T* p2 = static_cast<const T*>(static_cast<void *>(p1));
  if (p1 != p2)
    abort ();

A value of type pointer to object converted to "pointer to cv void" and back to the original pointer type (or a variant of the original pointer type that differs only in the cv-qualifiers applied to the object type) will have its original value. [Example:

T* p1 = new T;
const T* p2 = static_cast<const T*>(static_cast<void *>(p1));
bool b = p1 == p2; // b will have the value true.

---end example.]

Proposed resolution:

Change 7.6.1.9 [expr.static.cast] paragraph 10 as indicated:

A value of type pointer to object converted to "pointer to cv void" and back to the original pointer type, possibly with different cv-qualification, will have its original value. [Example:

  T* p1 = new T;
  const T* p2 = static_cast<const T*>(static_cast<void *>(p1));
  bool b = p1 == p2; // b will have the value true.

---end example]

Rationale: The wording "possibly with different cv-qualification" was chosen over the suggested wording to allow for changes in cv-qualification at different levels in a multi-level pointer, rather than only at the object type level.