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

865. Initializing a std::initializer_list

[Voted into WP at October, 2009 meeting.]

There are several problems with the wording of 9.4.5 [dcl.init.list] paragraph 4:

When an initializer list is implicitly converted to a std::initializer_list<E>, the object passed is constructed as if the implementation allocated an array of N elements of type E, where N is the number of elements in the initializer list. Each element of that array is initialized with the corresponding element of the initializer list converted to E, and the std::initializer_list<E> object is constructed to refer to that array. If a narrowing conversion is required to convert the element to E, the program is ill-formed.

First, an initializer list is not an expression, so it is not appropriate to refer to “implicitly convert[ing]” it, as is done in the first sentence.

Also, the conversion of the elements of the initializer list to the elements of the array is not specified to be either copy-initialization or direct-initialization. If this is intended to be viewed as an aggregate initialization, it would be copy-initialization, but that needs to be specified more clearly.

Finally, the initializer list can have nested initializer lists, so the references to converting the element also need to be cleaned up.

Proposed resolution (July, 2009):

Change 9.4.5 [dcl.init.list] paragraph 4 as follows:

When an initializer list is implicitly converted to a An object of type std::initializer_list<E> is constructed from an initializer list, the object passed is constructed as if the implementation allocated an array of N elements of type E, where N is the number of elements in the initializer list. Each element of that array is copy-initialized with the corresponding element of the initializer list converted to E, and the std::initializer_list<E> object is constructed to refer to that array. If a narrowing conversion is required to convert the element to E initialize any of the elements, the program is ill-formed. [Example:...