8 Declarators [dcl.decl]

A decomposition declaration introduces the identifiers v₀, v₁, v₂, ... of the identifier-list as names ([basic.scope.declarative]). Let cv denote the cv-qualifiers in the decl-specifier-seq. First, a variable with a unique name e is introduced. If the assignment-expression in the initializer has array type A and no ref-qualifier is present, e has type cv A and each element is copy-initialized or direct-initialized from the corresponding element of the assignment-expression as specified by the form of the initializer. Otherwise, e is defined as-if by

attribute-specifier-seqopt decl-specifier-seq ref-qualifieropt e initializer ;

where the declaration is never interpreted as a function declaration and the parts of the declaration other than the declarator-id are taken from the corresponding decomposition declaration. The type of the id-expression e is called E. [ Note: E is never a reference type (Clause [expr]).  — end note ]

If E is an array type with element type T, the number of elements in the identifier-list shall be equal to the number of elements of E. Each v_i is the name of an lvalue that refers to the element i of the array and whose type is T; the referenced type is T. [ Note: The top-level cv-qualifiers of T are cv.  — end note ] [ Example:

  auto f() -> int(&)[2];
  auto [ x, y ] = f();     // x and y refer to elements in a copy of the array return value
  auto& [ xr, yr ] = f();  // xr and yr refer to elements in the array referred to by f's return value

 — end example ]

Otherwise, if the qualified-id std::tuple_size<E> names a complete type, the expression std::tuple_size<E>::value shall be a well-formed integral constant expression and the number of elements in the identifier-list shall be equal to the value of that expression. The unqualified-id get is looked up in the scope of E by class member access lookup ([basic.lookup.classref]), and if that finds at least one declaration, the initializer is e.get<i>(). Otherwise, the initializer is get<i>(e), where get is looked up in the associated namespaces ([basic.lookup.argdep]). In either case, get<i> is interpreted as a template-id. [ Note: Ordinary unqualified lookup ([basic.lookup.unqual]) is not performed.  — end note ] In either case, e is an lvalue if the type of the entity e is an lvalue reference and an xvalue otherwise. Given the type T_i designated by std::tuple_element<i, E>::type, each v_i is a variable of type “reference to T_i” initialized with the initializer, where the reference is an lvalue reference if the initializer is an lvalue and an rvalue reference otherwise; the referenced type is T_i.

Otherwise, all of E's non-static data members shall be public direct members of E or of the same unambiguous public base class of E, E shall not have an anonymous union member, and the number of elements in the identifier-list shall be equal to the number of non-static data members of E. Designating the non-static data members of E as m₀, m₁, m₂, ... (in declaration order), each v_i is the name of an lvalue that refers to the member m_i of e and whose type is cv T_i, where T_i is the declared type of that member; the referenced type is cv T_i. The lvalue is a bit-field if that member is a bit-field. [ Example:

struct S { int x1 : 2; volatile double y1; };
S f();
const auto [ x, y ] = f();

The type of the id-expression x is “const int”, the type of the id-expression y is “const volatile double”.  — end example ]