Code doodles #3 – significant parentheses, C++14 style

Hello, everyone. It has been a while since my last post.

While watching CppCon 2014 I found this little gem being described by Scott Meyers.

Consider the following code:

decltype(auto) foo()
{
	static int Foo;
	return Foo;
}
 
decltype(auto) bar()
{
	static int Bar;
	return (Bar);
}
 
int main()
{
	decltype(auto) a = foo();
	decltype(auto) b = bar();
	a++;
	b++;
	cout << foo() << ", " << bar() << endl;
}

Would you expect this to print 0, 0? Well, not so fast. decltype(auto) is just a nicer syntax for decltype(name), where name is “unparenthesized id-expression or an unparenthesized class member access”, as described here. Therefore it follows the same rules.

That’s another corner case to remember, but I guess it could also make a nifty party trick, if one can find the right party.

2 thoughts on “Code doodles #3 – significant parentheses, C++14 style

    1. That’s interesting. Thank you for the comment.

      That being said, the SO answer doesn’t say what’s supposed to happen for prvalues (which is the case here, I believe).

      otherwise, decltype(e) is the type of e.

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