Is this a valid use of the noreturn attribute?

Question

While working on a thread (fiber) scheduling class, I found myself writing a function that never returns:

// New thread, called on an empty stack
// (implementation details, exception handling etc omitted)
[[noreturn]] void scheduler::thread() noexcept
{
    current_task->state = running;
    current_task->run();
    current_task->state = finished;

    while (true) yield();
    // can't return, since the stack contains no return address.
}

This function is never directly called (by thread();). It is "called" only by a jmp from assembly code, right after switching to a new context, so there is no way for it to "return" anywhere. The call to yield(), at the end, checks for state == finished and removes this thread from the thread queue.

Would this be a valid use of the [[noreturn]] attribute? And if so, would it help in any way?

edit: Not a duplicate. I understand what the attribute is normally used for. My question is, would it do anything in this specific case?

Answer 1

I'd say that it is valid but pointless.

It's valid because the function does not return. The contract cannot be broken.

It's pointless because the function is never called from C++ code. So no caller can make use of the fact that the function does not return because there is no caller. And at the point of definition of the function, the compiler should not require your assistance to determine that code following the while statement is dead, including a function postlude if any.