Consider this code:
void foo()
{
goto bar;
int x = 0;
bar: ;
}
GCC and Clang reject it, because the jump to bar:
bypasses variable initialization. MSVC doesn't complain at all (except using x
after bar:
causes a warning).
We can do a similar thing with a switch
:
void foo()
{
switch (0)
{
int x = 0;
case 0: ;
}
}
Now all three compilers emit errors.
Are those snippets ill-formed? Or do they cause UB?
I used to think that both were ill-formed, but I can't find the revelant parts of the standard. [stmt.goto] doesn't say anything about this, and neither does [stmt.select].
It's ill-formed when the initialization is non-vacuous.
[stmt.dcl]
3 It is possible to transfer into a block, but not in a way that bypasses declarations with initialization (including ones in conditions and init-statements). A program that jumps from a point where a variable with automatic storage duration is not in scope to a point where it is in scope is ill-formed unless the variable has vacuous initialization ([basic.life]). In such a case, the variables with vacuous initialization are constructed in the order of their declaration.
The initializer makes the initialization non-vacuous. To contrast, this
void foo()
{
goto bar;
int x; // no initializer
bar: ;
}
would be well-formed. Though the usual caveats about using x
with an indeterminate value would apply.