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

883. std::memcpy vs std::memmove

[Voted into WP at October, 2009 meeting.]

The std::memcpy library function is singled out for special treatment in 6.8 [basic.types] paragraph 3:

For any trivially copyable type T, if two pointers to T point to distinct T objects obj1 and obj2, where neither obj1 nor obj2 is a base-class subobject, if the value of obj1 is copied into obj2, using the std::memcpy library function, obj2 shall subsequently hold the same value as obj1.

This specification should not be restricted to std::memcpy but should apply to any bytewise copying, including std::memmove (as is done in the footnote in the preceding paragraph, for example).

Proposed resolution (July, 2009):

Change 6.8 [basic.types] paragraph 3 as follows:

For any trivially copyable type T, if two pointers to T point to distinct T objects obj1 and obj2, where neither obj1 nor obj2 is a base-class subobject, if the value of underlying bytes (6.7.1 [intro.memory]) making up obj1 is are copied into obj2, using the std::memcpy library function [Footnote: By using, for example, the library functions (16.4.2.3 [headers]) std::memcpy or std::memmove. —end footnote], obj2 shall subsequently hold the same value as obj1. [Example:...