This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 Core Issues List revision 113d. See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official list.

2024-03-20


522. Array-to-pointer decay in template argument deduction

Section: 13.10.3.2  [temp.deduct.call]     Status: CD1     Submitter: Daveed Vandevoorde     Date: 3 June 2005

[Voted into WP at the October, 2006 meeting.]

Consider the following example:

    char* cmdline3_[1] = {};

    template<class charT>
    void func(const charT* const argv[]) {}

    int main()
    {
        func(cmdline3_);
    }

In terms of the process described in 13.10.3.2 [temp.deduct.call], P is const charT* const * and A is char*[1]. According to the first bullet in paragraph 2, the type used in deduction is not A but “the pointer type produced by the array-to-pointer standard conversion.”

According to paragraph 4,

In general, the deduction process attempts to find template argument values that will make the deduced A identical to A (after the type A is transformed as described above). However, there are three cases that allow a difference:

In this example, the deduced A is not identical to the transformed A, because the deduced A has additional cv-qualification, so the three exceptions must be examined to see if they apply. The only one that might apply is the second bullet of paragraph 4:

However, A is not a pointer type but an array type; this provision does not apply and deduction fails.

It has been argued that the phrase “after the type A is transformed as described above” should be understood to apply to the A in the three bullets of paragraph 4. If that is the intent, the wording should be changed to make that explicit.

Proposed resolution (October, 2005):

Add the indicated words to 13.10.3.2 [temp.deduct.call] paragraph 4:

In general, the deduction process attempts to find template argument values that will make the deduced A identical to A (after the type A is transformed as described above). However, there are three cases that allow a difference: