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C++26: Trivial infinite loops are no longer undefined behaviour

173 points · 290 comments · ibobev

  1. wahern · · focus · HN ↗
    > When both conditions are met, the loop body is replaced with a call to std::this_thread::yield(). This gives execution of the loop the forward-progress semantics it previously lacked.

    That's the epitome of the hidden code downside that Linus and many others dislike about C++. For constructors and destructors it's somewhat unavoidable and not so random, though Rust does better at limiting the blast radius of non-local code, at least in the drop case.

    If they didn't want to adopt the C11 rule, the C++ committee should've explored a rule that required the compiler to emit a diagnostic or error for trivial loops (whether as defined by C11 or otherwise), requiring the programmer to explicitly insert ::yield or similar. No hidden code, and less opportunity for the compiler to do surprising things.

    The C committee has been rigorously enumerating UB cases in the standard and addressing each case in turn, often by requiring a diagnostic, error, or by turning it into implemention defined behavior. But inserting code like that would be unthinkable.

    1. pwdisswordfishq · · focus · HN ↗
      GNU C does the same: memory copies can be optimized into memcpy, various operations can be realized as calls into libgcc, etc.
      1. rcxdude · · focus · HN ↗
        Those do for the most part correspond to operations which make sense in an embedded context, though.
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