I'm inclined to have no space between the cv and the ref qualifier (const&).

This seems prevalent, so I've been suggesting removing spaces whenever I notice them.

I'm mildly in favor of having a space there. const& runs together too much for me. Yes, we do const T& elsewhere, but that feels somehow different.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I don't feel strongly either way, but do you at least think we should fix a style at all?

Yes, there should be consistent style enforced with check-source.sh (if that is technically feasible).

OK, great! I leave the choice to you -- I think I can see the point of cv and ref being different, separate things here, esp. since we also have a space before a & that has no const -- so it's not like T& and T const&, but more like f() & and f() const &.

@zygoloid, @opensdh: any other core perspectives here?

I generally agree: I don't tend to think of those qualifiers as actually being decl-specifiers and declarator operators, perhaps because ref-qualifiers don't influence the type of *this (even though they do affect the implicit object parameter). Moreover, in the West Const (aka Best Const) style used by the standard, one doesn't see a cv-qualifier followed immediately by a ptr-operator.

Jens: wants space, "too close together without space"

OpenSDH: wants space, becausethe qualifiers aren't decl-specifiers

Richard: wants space, because it's "const [T]&" where the T s omitted.

=> Let's go with the space then!

spacey!