adding parenthesis to a constructor call causes duplicate parameter error in xlc C++ compiler

Question

We are creating a domain specific language that generates C++ code that must compile under gcc and also IBM xlc (version 10.1 for AIX) compilers.

One specific code snippet generated C++ code that works perfectly well under gcc, but no so much under xlc. I have modified the code to the minimum case that still triggers the compile error:

//bug183.h
class emptyList
{};

extern emptyList weco;

class otherClass
{
        public:
                otherClass();
                otherClass(const int & p);
                otherClass(const emptyList & e);
                int geta() {return a;}
        private:
                int a;
};

class someClass
{
        public:
                someClass();
                someClass(const someClass & other);
                someClass(const otherClass & p1, const otherClass & p2);
                void exportState();

        private:
                otherClass oc1;
                otherClass oc2;

};

//bug183.cpp
#include "bug183.h"
#include <iostream>

emptyList weco = emptyList();

otherClass::otherClass() {a = 0;}
otherClass::otherClass(const int & p) {a = p;}
otherClass::otherClass(const emptyList & e) {a = 1000;}

someClass::someClass() {oc1 = otherClass(); oc2 = otherClass();}
someClass::someClass(const someClass & other) {oc1 = other.oc1; oc2 = other.oc2;}
someClass::someClass(const otherClass & p1, const otherClass & p2) {oc1 = p1; oc2 = p2;}
void someClass::exportState() {std::cout << oc1.geta() << " " << oc2.geta() << std::endl;}

int main()
{
        someClass dudi;
        dudi.exportState();

        //this line triggers the error in xlc
        someClass nuni = (someClass(otherClass(weco), otherClass(weco)));
        nuni.exportState();

        return 0;
}

Compiling this causes the following error to be raised: "bug183.cpp", line 21.66: 1540-0114 (S) A parameter name must not be the same as another parameter of this function.

but if I remove the enclosing parenthesis on the constructor call like this:

someClass nuni = someClass(otherClass(weco), otherClass(weco));

The error goes away. Also, if I change weco for another extern variable created just as weco the error goes away even if I enclose the constructor in parenthesis, so it is safe to say that both conditions need to be present for this error to show up.

Some of you may ask why don't we just remove the parenthesis then, but doing so may hurt parts of the code that are working correctly, so I'm inclined towards understanding if this behavior is expected from a C++ compiler or not or if at least there is a known workaround for it.

Answer 1

I think that

(someClass(otherClass(weco), otherClass(weco)))

is being incorrectly parsed as the start of the second production of a cast-expression:

cast-expression:
 unary-expression
 ( type-id ) cast-expression

Note § 8.2 paragraph 2 (emphasis added):

The ambiguity arising from the similarity between a function-style cast and a type-id can occur in different contexts. The ambiguity appears as a choice between a function-style cast expression and a declaration of a type. The resolution is that any construct that could possibly be a type-id in its syntactic context shall be considered a type-id.

If you consider the full syntactic context of the type-id in cast-expression, it's not possible for ... in (..); to match type-id, because the cast-expression following the ) cannot be empty. However, if you only consider the one-token-lookahead context, where the type-id must be followed by ), it could be plausible that 8.2(2) applies. I'm not really inclined to believe that the intention of the standard was to only consider one-token lookahead, though.

EDIT Reported as gcc bug 50637. You might want to submit a similar bug report to xlc.

Since gcc 4.7.2 seems to flag the same error as xlc. I played around with gcc a bit, and convinced myself that the problem is that gcc flags the error in the type-id (i.e., two parameters with the same name) before it figures out that the parenthesized expression cannot be a type-id.

Here's an example:

#include <iostream>
#include <utility>

static const int zero = 0;
int main() {
  // Consistent with 8.2[2]
  // Example 1. Invalid cast.
  // Here, 'int(int(zero))' is a type-id, so the compiler must take
  // the expression to be a cast of '+3' to a function.
  std::cout << (int(int(zero))) + 3 << std::endl;
  // Example 2: No error.
  // The parenthesized expression cannot be a type-id in this context
  std::cout << (int(int(zero))) << std::endl;
  // Example 3: Syntax error: zero redefined.
  // Here the parenthesized expression could be a type-id, so it must
  // be parsed as one, even though the type-id is invalid.
  std::cout << (std::pair<int,int>(int(zero), int(zero))) + 3 << std::endl;

  // Apparently not consistent with 8.2[2]
  // Here the parenthesized expression can't be a type-id, as in example 2.
  // However, the type-id triggers a syntax error, presumably before gcc
  // figures out that it's not a cast-expression.
  std::cout << (std::pair<int,int>(int(zero), int(zero))) << std::endl;

  return 0;
}

See it on lws. (Toggle between gcc and clang to see the difference.)

Based on the above analysis that the problem is premature triggering of a type-error, here's one possible workaround:

1) Add an alias for weco:

emptyList& weco_alias = weco;

2) Use one of each:

someClass nuni = (someClass(otherClass(weco), otherClass(weco_alias)));

This works on both gcc 4.7.2 and clang 3.2 (lws).