Why do compilers behave differently when static_cast(ing) a function to void*?












9















The following code compiles without any error in VSC++2017 and doesn't compile in gcc 7.3.0 (error: invalid static_cast from type ‘int(int)’ to type ‘void*’
void* p = static_cast<void*>(func)
)



#include <iostream>

int func(int x) { return 2 * x; }

int main() {

void* p = static_cast<void*>(func);
return 0;
}









share|improve this question




















  • 1





    Function pointers are a bit weird. I'd have to go Standard diving, but I'm pretty sure MSVC is bending the Standard for their own nefarious purposes.

    – user4581301
    yesterday






  • 2





    @user4581301 Not really – the other question is about C, and there might be differences in the languages...

    – Aconcagua
    yesterday






  • 1





    While function pointers are different animals than object pointers, most incompatibilities occur when the sizeof() the two differ. If they are the same you can usually safely convert back and forth to a void*. Even so, while it may work, it's not portable and just one of those things best avoided.

    – doug
    yesterday
















9















The following code compiles without any error in VSC++2017 and doesn't compile in gcc 7.3.0 (error: invalid static_cast from type ‘int(int)’ to type ‘void*’
void* p = static_cast<void*>(func)
)



#include <iostream>

int func(int x) { return 2 * x; }

int main() {

void* p = static_cast<void*>(func);
return 0;
}









share|improve this question




















  • 1





    Function pointers are a bit weird. I'd have to go Standard diving, but I'm pretty sure MSVC is bending the Standard for their own nefarious purposes.

    – user4581301
    yesterday






  • 2





    @user4581301 Not really – the other question is about C, and there might be differences in the languages...

    – Aconcagua
    yesterday






  • 1





    While function pointers are different animals than object pointers, most incompatibilities occur when the sizeof() the two differ. If they are the same you can usually safely convert back and forth to a void*. Even so, while it may work, it's not portable and just one of those things best avoided.

    – doug
    yesterday














9












9








9


1






The following code compiles without any error in VSC++2017 and doesn't compile in gcc 7.3.0 (error: invalid static_cast from type ‘int(int)’ to type ‘void*’
void* p = static_cast<void*>(func)
)



#include <iostream>

int func(int x) { return 2 * x; }

int main() {

void* p = static_cast<void*>(func);
return 0;
}









share|improve this question
















The following code compiles without any error in VSC++2017 and doesn't compile in gcc 7.3.0 (error: invalid static_cast from type ‘int(int)’ to type ‘void*’
void* p = static_cast<void*>(func)
)



#include <iostream>

int func(int x) { return 2 * x; }

int main() {

void* p = static_cast<void*>(func);
return 0;
}






c++ function-pointers void-pointers static-cast






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited yesterday









Fabio Turati

2,63452341




2,63452341










asked yesterday









Soulimane MammarSoulimane Mammar

553414




553414








  • 1





    Function pointers are a bit weird. I'd have to go Standard diving, but I'm pretty sure MSVC is bending the Standard for their own nefarious purposes.

    – user4581301
    yesterday






  • 2





    @user4581301 Not really – the other question is about C, and there might be differences in the languages...

    – Aconcagua
    yesterday






  • 1





    While function pointers are different animals than object pointers, most incompatibilities occur when the sizeof() the two differ. If they are the same you can usually safely convert back and forth to a void*. Even so, while it may work, it's not portable and just one of those things best avoided.

    – doug
    yesterday














  • 1





    Function pointers are a bit weird. I'd have to go Standard diving, but I'm pretty sure MSVC is bending the Standard for their own nefarious purposes.

    – user4581301
    yesterday






  • 2





    @user4581301 Not really – the other question is about C, and there might be differences in the languages...

    – Aconcagua
    yesterday






  • 1





    While function pointers are different animals than object pointers, most incompatibilities occur when the sizeof() the two differ. If they are the same you can usually safely convert back and forth to a void*. Even so, while it may work, it's not portable and just one of those things best avoided.

    – doug
    yesterday








1




1





Function pointers are a bit weird. I'd have to go Standard diving, but I'm pretty sure MSVC is bending the Standard for their own nefarious purposes.

– user4581301
yesterday





Function pointers are a bit weird. I'd have to go Standard diving, but I'm pretty sure MSVC is bending the Standard for their own nefarious purposes.

– user4581301
yesterday




2




2





@user4581301 Not really – the other question is about C, and there might be differences in the languages...

– Aconcagua
yesterday





@user4581301 Not really – the other question is about C, and there might be differences in the languages...

– Aconcagua
yesterday




1




1





While function pointers are different animals than object pointers, most incompatibilities occur when the sizeof() the two differ. If they are the same you can usually safely convert back and forth to a void*. Even so, while it may work, it's not portable and just one of those things best avoided.

– doug
yesterday





While function pointers are different animals than object pointers, most incompatibilities occur when the sizeof() the two differ. If they are the same you can usually safely convert back and forth to a void*. Even so, while it may work, it's not portable and just one of those things best avoided.

– doug
yesterday












1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















8














Functions are implicitly convertible only to function pointers. A function pointer is not a pointer in the strict meaning of the word in the language, which refers only to pointers to objects.



Function pointers cannot be converted to void* using static_cast. The shown program is ill-formed. If a compiler does not warn, then it fails to conform to the standard. Failing to compile an ill-formed program does not violate the standard.





On systems where void* is guaranteed to be able to point to a function (such as POSIX), you can use reinterpret_cast instead:



void* p = reinterpret_cast<void*>(func);


But this is not portable to systems that lack the guarantee. (I know of no system that has a C++ compiler and does not have this guarantee, but that does not mean such system does not exist).



Standard quote:




[expr.reinterpret.cast]



Converting a function pointer to an object pointer type or vice versa is conditionally-supported. The meaning
of such a conversion is implementation-defined, except that if an implementation supports conversions in both
directions, converting a prvalue of one type to the other type and back, possibly with different cv-qualification,
shall yield the original pointer value.




Note that this conditional support does not extend to pointers to member functions. Pointers to member functions are not function pointers.






share|improve this answer





















  • 2





    POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

    – Ben Voigt
    yesterday






  • 1





    @Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

    – eerorika
    yesterday








  • 2





    @eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

    – Peter
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

    – geza
    yesterday






  • 2





    @SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

    – geza
    yesterday











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1 Answer
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8














Functions are implicitly convertible only to function pointers. A function pointer is not a pointer in the strict meaning of the word in the language, which refers only to pointers to objects.



Function pointers cannot be converted to void* using static_cast. The shown program is ill-formed. If a compiler does not warn, then it fails to conform to the standard. Failing to compile an ill-formed program does not violate the standard.





On systems where void* is guaranteed to be able to point to a function (such as POSIX), you can use reinterpret_cast instead:



void* p = reinterpret_cast<void*>(func);


But this is not portable to systems that lack the guarantee. (I know of no system that has a C++ compiler and does not have this guarantee, but that does not mean such system does not exist).



Standard quote:




[expr.reinterpret.cast]



Converting a function pointer to an object pointer type or vice versa is conditionally-supported. The meaning
of such a conversion is implementation-defined, except that if an implementation supports conversions in both
directions, converting a prvalue of one type to the other type and back, possibly with different cv-qualification,
shall yield the original pointer value.




Note that this conditional support does not extend to pointers to member functions. Pointers to member functions are not function pointers.






share|improve this answer





















  • 2





    POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

    – Ben Voigt
    yesterday






  • 1





    @Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

    – eerorika
    yesterday








  • 2





    @eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

    – Peter
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

    – geza
    yesterday






  • 2





    @SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

    – geza
    yesterday
















8














Functions are implicitly convertible only to function pointers. A function pointer is not a pointer in the strict meaning of the word in the language, which refers only to pointers to objects.



Function pointers cannot be converted to void* using static_cast. The shown program is ill-formed. If a compiler does not warn, then it fails to conform to the standard. Failing to compile an ill-formed program does not violate the standard.





On systems where void* is guaranteed to be able to point to a function (such as POSIX), you can use reinterpret_cast instead:



void* p = reinterpret_cast<void*>(func);


But this is not portable to systems that lack the guarantee. (I know of no system that has a C++ compiler and does not have this guarantee, but that does not mean such system does not exist).



Standard quote:




[expr.reinterpret.cast]



Converting a function pointer to an object pointer type or vice versa is conditionally-supported. The meaning
of such a conversion is implementation-defined, except that if an implementation supports conversions in both
directions, converting a prvalue of one type to the other type and back, possibly with different cv-qualification,
shall yield the original pointer value.




Note that this conditional support does not extend to pointers to member functions. Pointers to member functions are not function pointers.






share|improve this answer





















  • 2





    POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

    – Ben Voigt
    yesterday






  • 1





    @Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

    – eerorika
    yesterday








  • 2





    @eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

    – Peter
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

    – geza
    yesterday






  • 2





    @SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

    – geza
    yesterday














8












8








8







Functions are implicitly convertible only to function pointers. A function pointer is not a pointer in the strict meaning of the word in the language, which refers only to pointers to objects.



Function pointers cannot be converted to void* using static_cast. The shown program is ill-formed. If a compiler does not warn, then it fails to conform to the standard. Failing to compile an ill-formed program does not violate the standard.





On systems where void* is guaranteed to be able to point to a function (such as POSIX), you can use reinterpret_cast instead:



void* p = reinterpret_cast<void*>(func);


But this is not portable to systems that lack the guarantee. (I know of no system that has a C++ compiler and does not have this guarantee, but that does not mean such system does not exist).



Standard quote:




[expr.reinterpret.cast]



Converting a function pointer to an object pointer type or vice versa is conditionally-supported. The meaning
of such a conversion is implementation-defined, except that if an implementation supports conversions in both
directions, converting a prvalue of one type to the other type and back, possibly with different cv-qualification,
shall yield the original pointer value.




Note that this conditional support does not extend to pointers to member functions. Pointers to member functions are not function pointers.






share|improve this answer















Functions are implicitly convertible only to function pointers. A function pointer is not a pointer in the strict meaning of the word in the language, which refers only to pointers to objects.



Function pointers cannot be converted to void* using static_cast. The shown program is ill-formed. If a compiler does not warn, then it fails to conform to the standard. Failing to compile an ill-formed program does not violate the standard.





On systems where void* is guaranteed to be able to point to a function (such as POSIX), you can use reinterpret_cast instead:



void* p = reinterpret_cast<void*>(func);


But this is not portable to systems that lack the guarantee. (I know of no system that has a C++ compiler and does not have this guarantee, but that does not mean such system does not exist).



Standard quote:




[expr.reinterpret.cast]



Converting a function pointer to an object pointer type or vice versa is conditionally-supported. The meaning
of such a conversion is implementation-defined, except that if an implementation supports conversions in both
directions, converting a prvalue of one type to the other type and back, possibly with different cv-qualification,
shall yield the original pointer value.




Note that this conditional support does not extend to pointers to member functions. Pointers to member functions are not function pointers.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited yesterday

























answered yesterday









eerorikaeerorika

87.3k663134




87.3k663134








  • 2





    POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

    – Ben Voigt
    yesterday






  • 1





    @Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

    – eerorika
    yesterday








  • 2





    @eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

    – Peter
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

    – geza
    yesterday






  • 2





    @SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

    – geza
    yesterday














  • 2





    POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

    – Ben Voigt
    yesterday






  • 1





    @Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

    – eerorika
    yesterday








  • 2





    @eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

    – Peter
    yesterday






  • 2





    @Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

    – geza
    yesterday






  • 2





    @SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

    – geza
    yesterday








2




2





POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

– Ben Voigt
yesterday





POSIX requires interconvertibility between function pointers (code addresses) and object pointers (data addresses), it's necessary to make dlsym work.

– Ben Voigt
yesterday




1




1





@Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

– eerorika
yesterday







@Peter the standard requires a diagnostic if the program is ill-formed (unless specified otherwise). The shown program is ill-formed. A diagnostic is required. A warning is a form of a diagnostic, and issuing a warning would be sufficient to conform to the standard. Lack of a diagnostic is violation of the standard.

– eerorika
yesterday






2




2





@eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

– Peter
yesterday





@eerorika - You're conflating terms. The term "diagnostic" has a specific definition in the standard as being required by the standard in specified circumstances. Warnings generally provide additional information, not mandated by the standard, because vendors choose to do so, as an aid for developers (usually because the compiler does more analysis than the standard requires, so can provide additional information). To YOU a warning may be a diagnostic. To the C++ standards, by definition in the standards, it is not.

– Peter
yesterday




2




2





@Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

– geza
yesterday





@Peter: A warning is a diagnostic. defns.diagnostic: "message belonging to an implementation-defined subset of the implementation's output messages".

– geza
yesterday




2




2





@SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

– geza
yesterday





@SoulimaneMammar: The standard handles it. It says it is implementation defined whether the conversion is supported. It is the best the standard can say about this (because there could be/was platforms, where the conversion is not possible). But it is highly likely that the conversion works on all current wide-spread platforms (if a platform has dlsym/GetProcAddress, it should work).

– geza
yesterday




















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