9 Declarations [dcl.dcl]

Unless otherwise stated, utterances in [dcl.dcl] about components in, of, or contained by a declaration or subcomponent thereof refer only to those components of the declaration that are not nested within scopes nested within the declaration.

A simple-declaration or nodeclspec-function-declaration of the form

attribute-specifier-seq

_{o p t}

decl-specifier-seq

_{o p t}

init-declarator-list

_{o p t}

;

is divided into three parts.

Attributes are described in [dcl.attr].

decl-specifiers, the principal components of a decl-specifier-seq, are described in [dcl.spec].

declarators, the components of an init-declarator-list, are described in [dcl.decl].

The attribute-specifier-seq appertains to each of the entities declared by the declarators of the init-declarator-list.

[Note 2:

In the declaration for an entity, attributes appertaining to that entity can appear at the start of the declaration and after the declarator-id for that declaration.

— end note]

[Example 1: [[noreturn]] void f [[noreturn]] (); // OK — end example]

If a declarator-id is a name, the init-declarator and (hence) the declaration introduce that name.

[Note 3:

Otherwise, the declarator-id is a qualified-id or names a destructor or its unqualified-id is a template-id and no name is introduced.

— end note]

The defining-type-specifiers ([dcl.type]) in the decl-specifier-seq and the recursive declarator structure describe a type ([dcl.meaning]), which is then associated with the declarator-id.

In a simple-declaration, the optional init-declarator-list can be omitted only when declaring a class ([class.pre]) or enumeration ([dcl.enum]), that is, when the decl-specifier-seq contains either a class-specifier, an elaborated-type-specifier with a class-key ([class.name]), or an enum-specifier.

In these cases and whenever a class-specifier or enum-specifier is present in the decl-specifier-seq, the identifiers in these specifiers are also declared (as class-names, enum-names, or enumerators, depending on the syntax).

In such cases, the decl-specifier-seq shall (re)introduce one or more names into the program.

[Example 2: enum { }; // error typedef class { }; // error — end example]

A simple-declaration with an identifier-list is called a structured binding declaration ([dcl.struct.bind]).

Each decl-specifier in the decl-specifier-seq shall be static, thread_local, auto ([dcl.spec.auto]), or a cv-qualifier.

[Example 3: template<class T> concept C = true; C auto [x, y] = std::pair{1, 2}; // error: constrained placeholder-type-specifier // not permitted for structured bindings — end example]

The initializer shall be of the form “= assignment-expression”, of the form “{ assignment-expression }”, or of the form “( assignment-expression )”, where the assignment-expression is of array or non-union class type.

If the decl-specifier-seq contains the typedef specifier, the declaration is a typedef declaration and each declarator-id is declared to be a typedef-name, synonymous with its associated type ([dcl.typedef]).

[Note 4:

Such a declarator-id is an identifier ([class.conv.fct]).

— end note]

Otherwise, if the type associated with a declarator-id is a function type ([dcl.fct]), the declaration is a function declaration.

Otherwise, if the type associated with a declarator-id is an object or reference type, the declaration is an object declaration.

Otherwise, the program is ill-formed.

[Example 4: int f(), x; // OK, function declaration for f and object declaration for x extern void g(), // OK, function declaration for g y; // error: void is not an object type — end example]

Syntactic components beyond those found in the general form of simple-declaration are added to a function declaration to make a function-definition.

An object declaration, however, is also a definition unless it contains the extern specifier and has no initializer ([basic.def]).

An object definition causes storage of appropriate size and alignment to be reserved and any appropriate initialization ([dcl.init]) to be done.

A nodeclspec-function-declaration shall declare a constructor, destructor, or conversion function.

[Note 5:

Because a member function cannot be subject to a non-defining declaration outside of a class definition ([class.mfct]), a nodeclspec-function-declaration can only be used in a template-declaration ([temp.pre]), explicit-instantiation ([temp.explicit]), or explicit-specialization ([temp.expl.spec]).

— end note]

In a static_assert-declaration, the constant-expression is contextually converted to bool and the converted expression shall be a constant expression ([expr.const]).

If the value of the expression when so converted is true or the expression is evaluated in the context of a template definition, the declaration has no effect.

Otherwise, the static_assert-declaration fails, the program is ill-formed, and the resulting diagnostic message ([intro.compliance]) should include the text of the string-literal, if one is supplied.

[Example 5: static_assert(sizeof(int) == sizeof(void*), "wrong pointer size"); static_assert(sizeof(int[2])); // OK, narrowing allowed template <class T> void f(T t) { if constexpr (sizeof(T) == sizeof(int)) { use(t); } else { static_assert(false, "must be int-sized"); } } void g(char c) { f(0); // OK f(c); // error on implementations where sizeof(int) > 1: must be int-sized } — end example]

An empty-declaration has no effect.

Except where otherwise specified, the meaning of an attribute-declaration is implementation-defined.