What is a lifetime of a function return value?
In C, the lifetime of the temporary in your example ends when the printf
expression is finished:
- Per C 2011 (N1570) 6.2.4 8, the lifetime of a temporary ends when the evaluation of the full expression (or declarator) containing it ends: “A non-lvalue expression with structure or union type, where the structure or union contains a member with array type (including, recursively, members of all contained structures and unions) refers to an object with automatic storage duration and temporary lifetime. Its lifetime begins when the expression is evaluated and its initial value is the value of the expression. Its lifetime ends when the evaluation of the containing full expression or full declarator ends.”
- Per 6.8 4: “A full expression is an expression that is not part of another expression or of a declarator.” Per 6.7.6 3: “A full declarator is a declarator that is not part of another declarator.”
- Therefore, the lifetime of the temporary in your example ends when the
printf
expression is finished.
In C++, the lifetime in your example is the same as in C:
- Per C++ 2010 (N3092) 12.2 3: “Temporary objects are destroyed as the last step in evaluating the full-expression (1.9) that (lexically) contains the point where they were created.”
- Per 12.2 4 and 5: “There are two contexts in which temporaries are destroyed at a different point than the end of the full-expression. The first context is when a default constructor is called to initialize an element of an array. If the constructor has one or more default arguments, the destruction of every temporary created in a default argument expression is sequenced before the construction of the next array element, if any.” “The second context is when a reference is bound to a temporary. The temporary to which the reference is bound or the temporary that is the complete object of a subobject to which the reference is bound persists for the lifetime of the reference except:…” (I have omitted the exceptions for brevity, as they do not apply here.)
- So your example is the same in C++, the temporary object is destroyed as the last step in evaluating the
printf
expression.
The function xprint
returns a copy of the structure, and the compiler stores this copy in a temporary, and the temporaries lifetime is the duration of the printf
function call. When the printf
function returns, that temporary object is destroyed.