Proposed Resolution (10/99):

[Note: a small portion of this wording is superseded by the resolution of issue 185.]

The paragraph in question should be rewritten as follows. In addition, references to this section should be added to the index under "temporary, elimination of," "elimination of temporary," and "copy, constructor elision."

When certain criteria are met, an implementation is allowed to omit the copy construction of a class object, even if the copy constructor and/or destructor for the object have side effects. In such cases, the implementation treats the source and target of the omitted copy operation as simply two different ways of referring to the same object, and the destruction of that object occurs at the later of the times when the two objects would have been destroyed without the optimization [footnote: Because only one object is destroyed instead of two, and one copy constructor is not executed, there is still one object destroyed for each one constructed. end footnote]. This elision of copy operations is permitted in the following circumstances (which may be combined to eliminate multiple copies):


• in a return statement in a function with a class return type, where the expression is the name of a non-volatile automatic object with the same cv-unqualified type as the function return type, the copy operation can be omitted by constructing the automatic object directly into the function's return value

• when a temporary class object (6.7.7 [class.temporary] ) would be copied to a class object with the same cv-unqualified type, the copy operation can be omitted by constructing the temporary object directly into the target of the omitted copy

[Example:

    class Thing {
    public:
        Thing();
        ~Thing();
        Thing(const Thing&);
    };

    Thing f() {
        Thing t;
        return t;
    }

    Thing t2 = f();

Issue 1

11.4.5.3 [class.copy.ctor] (From J16/99-0005 = WG21 N1182, "Proposed Resolutions for Core Language Issues 6, 14, 20, 40, and 89")

There are three related sub-issues in this issue, all dealing with the elision of copy constructors as described in 11.4.5.3 [class.copy.ctor] paragraph 15:

1. The text should make clear that the requirement that the copy constructor be accessible and unambiguous is not relaxed in cases where a call to a copy constructor is elided.
2. It is not clear from the text that the two optimizations described can be applied transitively, and, if so, the implications for the order of destruction are not spelled out.
3. The text should exclude applying the function-return optimization if the expression names a static or volatile local object.

After discussion in Santa Cruz, the core group decided that sub-issue #1 required no change; the necessity of an accessible and unambiguous copy constructor is made clear in 6.7.7 [class.temporary] paragraph 1 and need not be repeated in this text. The remaining two sub-issues appear to be valid criticisms and should be addressed.