Are compound literals Standard C++?
Compound Literals are a C99 construct. Even though I can do this in C++ :
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
for (auto i : (float[2]) {2.7, 3.1}) cout << i << endl;
}
It seems that for example MSVC supports it as an extension. Yet all compilers I can get my hands on, compile the above mentioned code.
So is this a feature available in C++14 ? Is there a different standard term (It looks to me like just creating a temporary using braced initialization) ?
Side Note : "Compound Literals" (or whatever I should call the above) are a pack expansion context ( just to mention a functionality )
This is an extension that both gcc and clang
support. The gcc document says:
As an extension, GCC supports compound literals in C90 mode and in C++, though the semantics are somewhat different in C++.
if you build with -pedantic you should receive a warning, for example clang
says (see it live):
warning: compound literals are a C99-specific feature [-Wc99-extensions]
Note, the semantic differences in C++ are not minor and code that would be well-defined in C99 can have undefined behavior in C++ with this extension:
In C++, a compound literal designates a temporary object, which only lives until the end of its full-expression. As a result, well-defined C code that takes the address of a subobject of a compound literal can be undefined in C++.
(float[2]) {2.7, 3.1}
is a C99 compound literal. Some compilers support it in C++ as an extension.
float[2] {2.7, 3.1}
is a syntax error.
Given using arr = float[2];
,
arr {2.7, 3.1}
is valid C++ that list-initializes a temporary array of two float
s.
{2.7, 3.1}
is called a braced-init-list.
Finally, for your code,
for (auto i : {2.7, 3.1}) cout << i << endl;
works equally well and is perfectly valid C++ - this constructs a std::initializer_list<double>
under the hood. If you really want float
s, add the f
suffix to the numbers.