C++: RVO and auto

posted 01 Nov 2019

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A quick overview of my day to day learnings about C++.

RVO - copy/move elision

A conversation came up in one of our code reviews about Return Value Optimization. This led me to research when and how return value optimization takes place. The reference page contains the key piece of info I was looking for:

… The objects are constructed directly into the storage where they would otherwise be copied/moved to. …

The rest of the reference page is good to read for when this optimization occurs.

AAA - Almost Always Auto

We had some debate about when to use auto in our code. The prevailing wisdom (local to our group) was to use it on primitive types or where it was very obvious what the type that was being created was. I was of the opinion (and of the practice) that auto should only be used in range-based for loops

One of the guys on our team sent out this blog post in response to the conversation. I found it addressed many of the issues I had with auto. I’ll be trying to get in the habit of using it more often.