Are constexpr functions implicitly static?
constexpr
functions are not implicitly static. They have the same linkage as non-constexpr
functions:
// external linkage
constexpr int f1(int x) { /* ... */ }
// internal linkage
static constexpr int f2(int x) { /* ... */ }
// internal linkage
namespace {
constexpr int f3(int x) { /* ... */ }
}
// no linkage
void enclosing() {
struct S {
constexpr int f4(int x) { /* ... */ }
};
}
When a constexpr
function has external linkage, it has the same address in all translation units. When it has internal linkage, there is a different copy in each translation unit, and those copies have different addresses. However, I believe the result of calling a constexpr
function should not depend on whether it has internal or external linkage (since constexpr
functions may not contain static variables).
constexpr
functions are implicitly inline
.
inline
is a linking feature. An inline
function with definitions in different compilation units is not an error; if their definitions vary, your program is ill-formed no diagnostic required, but if they have the same definition then all but one version is discarded and that version is used.
static
, on a non-method function, is also a linking feature. A static
definition is not shared outside of its compilation unit; the compilation unit does not 'advertise' that it has a definition for isThree
.
static
on a method function has nothing to do with linking. In that case, it just means that this
is not implicitly passed to the function. A method with/without this
it doesn't work has differences, but they are mostly unrelated to them being constexpr
. Note that in at least c++14 a constexpr
method that doesn't use this
can still be constant evaluated. Some versions of c++ make constexpr
methods implicitly const
; c++17 does not.
&isThree
in one compilation unit and &isThree
in another can (and usually do) vary when static
(barring aggressive ICF, which is a matter for a different question). When inline
they may not vary.
inline
functions are shared between compilation units. Their full definition is also often visible in all compilation units aware of it, so it makes compiler "inlining" (as opposed to the keyword) your code easier. static
are not. constexpr
functions are implicitly inline
, but not implicitly static
.
Note that constexpr
functions can be evaluated in a runtime context sometimes. When evaluated in a compile time context, their inline
vs static
or linkage state really doesn't matter.
constexpr
means other things as well, but you wanted to know the difference between two different constexpr
declarations, and none of those meanings change.