7 Expressions [expr]

7.3 Standard conversions [conv]

7.3.2 Lvalue-to-rvalue conversion [conv.lval]

A glvalue of a non-function, non-array type T can be converted to a prvalue.43

If T is an incomplete type, a program that necessitates this conversion is ill-formed.

If T is a non-class type, the type of the prvalue is the cv-unqualified version of T.

Otherwise, the type of the prvalue is T.44

When an lvalue-to-rvalue conversion is applied to an expression E, and either

(2.1)
E is not potentially evaluated, or
(2.2)
the evaluation of E results in the evaluation of a member $E_{x}$ of the set of potential results of E, and $E_{x}$ names a variable x that is not odr-used by $E_{x}$ ([basic.def.odr]),

the value contained in the referenced object is not accessed.

[Example 1: struct S { int n; }; auto f() { S x { 1 }; constexpr S y { 2 }; return [&](bool b) { return (b ? y : x).n; }; } auto g = f(); int m = g(false); // undefined behavior: access of x.n outside its lifetime int n = g(true); // OK, does not access y.n — end example]

The result of the conversion is determined according to the following rules:

(3.1)
If T is cv std::nullptr_t, the result is a null pointer constant ([conv.ptr]).

[Note 1:
Since the conversion does not access the object to which the glvalue refers, there is no side effect even if T is volatile-qualified ([intro.execution]), and the glvalue can refer to an inactive member of a union ([class.union]).
— end note]
(3.2)
Otherwise, if T has a class type, the conversion copy-initializes the result object from the glvalue.
(3.3)
Otherwise, if the object to which the glvalue refers contains an invalid pointer value ([basic.stc.dynamic.deallocation]), the behavior is implementation-defined.
(3.4)
Otherwise, if the bits in the value representation of the object to which the glvalue refers are not valid for the object's type, the behavior is undefined.

[Example 2: bool f() { bool b = true; char c = 42; memcpy(&b, &c, 1); return b; // undefined behavior if 42 is not a valid value representation for bool } — end example]
(3.5)
Otherwise, the object indicated by the glvalue is read ([defns.access]).

Let V be the value contained in the object.

If T is an integer type, the prvalue result is the value of type T congruent ([basic.fundamental]) to V, and V otherwise.

[Note 2: