CWG3041 [class.dtor] trivial union proposal added overly aggressive rule to delete a union destructor #722

Reference (section label): [class.dtor]

Link to reflector thread (if any):

Issue description:

P3074R7 in its latest revision tried to add symmetry for the constructor and destructor rules, on the premise that if the constructor constructs something with a non-trivial destructor the defaulted destructor should be deleted. i.e. if { U u; } works it should be sensible.

However, the wording right now says:

A defaulted destructor for a class X is defined as deleted if

• [...],
• X is a union and
  • overload resolution to select a constructor to default-initialize an object of type X either fails or selects a constructor that is either deleted or not trivial, or
  • X has a variant member V of class type M (or possibly multi-dimensional array thereof) where V has a default member initializer and M has a destructor that is non-trivial,
• or, [...]

That means that, among other things, this type:

union U {
    U(int i) : i(i) { }
    int i;
};

now has a deleted destructor.

We should only delete the defaulted destructor for a union if:

• there is a subobject S of class type M (or possibly multi-dimensional array thereof) where M has a destructor that is deleted, inaccessible from the defaulted destructor, or non-trivial, AND EITHER
  • overload resolution to select a constructor to default-initialize an object of type X either fails or selects a constructor that is either deleted or user-provided not trivial, OR
  • X has a variant member V of class type M (or possibly multi-dimensional array thereof) where V S has a default member initializer and M has a destructor that is non-trivial,

The user-provided addition is because we don't want to reject either of these:

union U1 { string s; U1* next = nullptr; };
union U2 { U2() = default; string s; U2* next = nullptr; };

Those default constructors aren't trivial, but this case is okay. It's only these cases that we want to reject:

union U3 { U3(); string s; U3* next; };
union U4 { string s = "hi"; U4* next; };

because we don't know what U3 might initialize — it might initialize s, so we preemptively delete the destructor in that case. And U4 we know we're initializing s, so we definitely want to reject.