Re: [boost] [AFIO] Formal review

Subject: Re: [boost] [AFIO] Formal review
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-09-02 14:55:18

On 2 Sep 2015 at 5:31, John Bytheway wrote:

> > Please do correct me if I am wrong, but I had thought that this is 
> > defined behaviour:
> > 
> > int a=5;
> > void *b=(void *)(size_t) a;
> > int c=(int)(size_t) b;
> > assert(c==a);
> > 
> > This is certainly a very common pattern in C.
> 
> I believe this is implementation-defined.  Based on N3797
> [expr.reinterpret.cast], paragraph 5:
> 
> "A value of integral type or enumeration type can be explicitly
> converted to a pointer. A pointer converted to an integer of sufficient
> size (if any such exists on the implementation) and back to the same
> pointer type will have its original value; mappings between pointers and
> integers are otherwise implementation-defined."
> 
> The behaviour that is defined (pointer to integer and back) is the
> reverse of the one you want.

That's the whole point of the intermediate size_t cast. int to size_t 
is defined behaviour, size_t to void * is defined behaviour, void * 
to size_t is defined behaviour, size_t to int is defined behaviour.

Older code, and still a lot of C code, directly casts between int and 
void * and back again, even though strictly speaking that's a no no.

Niall

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