Re: move/copy constructors, variadic constructors, and private inheritance, is this a compiler bug?

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Daniel_Kr=FCgler?= <daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 04:10:59 CST
Message-ID:
<krog7s$snt$1@dont-email.me>
On 2013-07-12 10:11, fmatthew5876 wrote:

I'm designing an allocator interface and came across a strange bug in
C++11


Your code was (reformatted and removing the explicit template parameters
when they refer to the same class):

#include <utility>

class DefaultAllocatorImpl {};

template <typename A>
class Allocator : public A {
    public:
    Allocator(const Allocator& b) : A(b) {}
    Allocator(Allocator&& b) : A(std::move(b)) {}
    template <typename... Args>
      Allocator(Args&&... args) : A(std::forward<Args>(args)...) {}
};

typedef Allocator<DefaultAllocatorImpl> DefaultAllocator;

template <typename T, typename ALLOC = DefaultAllocator>
class Container : private ALLOC {
    public:
    Container();
    Container(const Container& c) : ALLOC(c) {}
    Container(Container&& c) : ALLOC(std::move(c)) {}
};

template class Container<int>;

int main() {
    Container<int> ct;
    return 0;
}

This code fails to compile on both gcc 4.7.1 and clang 3.2.

If I comment out the
template <typename... Args>
      Allocator(Args&&... args) : A(std::forward<Args>(args)...) {}

constructor it compiles just fine.

Shouldn't the compiler choose Allocator(const Allocator&) and
Allocator(Allocator&&) over the more generic variadic one?


No, because the actual argument type is Container<int> and is not
identical to DefaultAllocator. The "perfect-forwarding" constructor
template considers the instantiation of

DefaultAllocator::DefaultAllocator(Container<int>&&);

and

DefaultAllocator::DefaultAllocator(const Container<int>&);

as a better match because it fits "perfectly" and doesn't require a
conversion to a base class.

Is this the correct behavior or a compiler bug?


I think this is correct behaviour.

If this behavior is correct, how can I forward the move/copy
constructors correctly while still retaining the variadic one?


Just ensure that you forward the correct ALLOC subobject to the ALLOC
constructor:

Container(const Container& c) : ALLOC(static_cast<const ALLOC&>(c)) {}
Container(Container&& c) : ALLOC(static_cast<ALLOC&&>(std::move(c))) {}

HTH & Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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