Acknowledgements
This document was originally developed jointly by an informal industry coalition consisting of (in alphabetical order) CodeSourcery, Compaq, EDG, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, and SGI. Additional contributions were provided by a variety of individuals. It is now developed as an open-source project with contributions from a variety of individuals and companies.
In this document, we specify the Application Binary Interface (ABI)
for C++ programs: that is, the object code interfaces between different
user-provided C++ program fragments and between those fragments and
the implementation-provided runtime and libraries. This includes the
memory layout for C++ data objects, including both predefined and
user-defined data types, as well as internal compiler generated
objects such as virtual tables. It also includes function calling
interfaces, exception handling interfaces, global naming, and various
object code conventions.
In general, this document is meant to serve as a generic specification
which can be used by C++ implementations on a variety of platforms.
It does this by layering on top of a platform's base C ABI. However,
it was originally written for the Itanium architecture, and some parts
still directly make Itanium-specific or 64-bit-specific assumptions.
There is an ongoing project to restate the entire C++ ABI specification
in terms of portable C concepts that are defined in the C ABI. In
the meantime, it is usually straightforward to recognize these
unportable assumptions and translate them appropriately, e.g. by
replacing a 64-bit pointer with a 32-bit pointer.
This document is not an authoritative definition of the C++ ABI for
any particular platform. Platform vendors retain the ultimate power
to define the C++ ABI for their platform. Platforms using this ABI
for C++ should declare that they do so, either unmodified or with a
certain set of changes.
While this ABI has generally stood up well, there are some parts of it
that are now seen as mistakes. This document includes several
recommendations for platforms adopting this ABI with no need to
interoperate with existing C++ object code. These recommendations
appear as follows:
Platforms adopting any of these recommendations should describe the
exact changes they've made in their platform ABI documentation,
as the set of recommendations in this document may change over time.
The descriptions below make use of the following definitions:
Note that the traversal may be preorder or postorder.
Unless otherwise specified,
preorder (derived classes before their bases) is intended.
This definition, as applied to class types, is intended to be the
complement of the definition in [class.temporary]p3 of types for which
an extra temporary is allowed when passing or returning a type. A type
which is trivial for the purposes of the ABI will be passed and returned
according to the rules of the base C ABI, e.g. in registers; often
this has the effect of performing a trivial copy of the type.
In general, a type is considered a POD for the purposes of layout if
it is a POD type (in the sense of ISO C++
[basic.types]). However, a
type is not considered to be a POD for the purpose of layout if it is:
Being tied to the TC1 definition of POD does not prevent compilers
from being fully compliant with later revisions. This ABI uses the
definition of POD only to decide whether to allocate objects in the
tail-padding of a base-class subobject. While the standards have
broadened the definition of POD over time, they have also forbidden
the programmer from directly reading or writing the underlying bytes
of a base-class subobject with, say, memcpy. Therefore,
even in the most conservative interpretation, implementations may
freely allocate objects in the tail padding of any class which would
not have been POD in C++98. This ABI is in compliance with that.
Various representations specified by this ABI impose limitations on
conforming user programs.
These include, for the 64-bit Itanium ABI:
This ABI specifies a number of type and function APIs supplemental
to those required by the ISO C++ Standard.
A header file named
These APIs will be placed in a namespace
In general,
API objects defined as part of this ABI are assumed to be extern "C++".
However, some (many?) are specified to be extern "C" if they:
The objective of a full ABI is to allow arbitrary mixing of object
files produced by conforming implementations,
by fully specifying the binary interface of application programs.
We do not fully achieve this objective.
There are two principal reasons for this:
Notwithstanding these problems,
because this ABI does completely specify the data model
and certain library interfaces that inherently interact between objects
(e.g. construction, destruction, and exceptions),
it is our intent that interoperation of object files produced by
different compilers be possible in the following cases:
Even these cases can fail if the compiler makes use of
implementation-defined library interfaces to implement runtime
functionality without explicit user reference,
e.g. a software divide function.
We can distinguish between:
An implementation shall place its standard support library in a DSO
named
This ABI does not specify the treatment of export templates,
as there are no working implementations to serve as models at this time.
We hope to address this weakness in the future when implementation
experience is available.
A number of other documents provide a basis on which this ABI is built,
and are occasionally referenced herein:
In what follows, we define the memory layout for C++ data objects.
Specifically, for each type, we specify the following information about
an object O of that type:
For purposes internal to the specification,
we also specify:
The size and alignment of a type which is a POD for the
purpose of layout is as specified by the base C ABI, with the
following provisos:
The dsize, nvsize, and nvalign of these types are
defined to be their ordinary size and alignment. These properties
only matter for non-empty class types that are used as base classes.
We ignore tail padding for PODs because the standard before the resolution
of CWG issue 43 did not allow us to use
it for anything else and because it sometimes permits faster copying of the
type.
The basic ABI properties of data member pointer types are those
of
A data member pointer is represented as the data member's offset in bytes
from the address point of an object of the base type, as a
A null data member pointer is represented as an offset of
Note that by
Base-to-derived and derived-to-base conversions of a non-null data member
pointer can be performed by adding or subtracting (respectively) the static
offset of the base within the derived class. The C++ standard does not
permit base-to-derived and derived-to-base conversions of member pointers
to cross a
Data member pointers that identify members of their class will always
store non-negative offsets. Unfortunately, it is possible to apply
conversions to a non-null data member pointer that will cause it to
hold a negative offset. If this value is
It is relatively difficult to demonstrate this defect in well-defined
code. It is possible to convert a member pointer to a derived class
and then cast it back it to a different base class; if the second base
class is stored after the first, the resulting offset will be negative.
However, this cast has undefined behavior because the member is no
longer a member of a base or derived class of the member pointer's class.
To demonstrate the defect, either an empty base class or an empty
data member must be involved. For example:
Several different representions of member function pointers are in use.
The standard representation relies on several assumptions about the
platform, such as that the low bit of a function pointer to a non-virtual
member function is always zero. For platforms where this is not reasonable
to guarantee, an alternate representation must be used. One such
representation, used on the 32-bit ARM architecture, is also described here.
In all representations, the basic ABI properties of member function
pointer types are those of the following class, where
A member function pointer for a non-virtual member function is represented
with
In the standard representation, a member function pointer for a virtual
function is represented with
In both of these cases,
In the standard representation, a null member function pointer is
represented with
The standard representation relies on some assumptions which are
true for most platforms:
However, there are exceptions. For example, on the 32-bit ARM
architecture, the low bit of a function pointer determines whether
the function begins in THUMB mode. Such platforms must use an
alternate representation.
In the 32-bit ARM representation, the A member function pointer is null if Two member function pointers are equal if they are both null or
if their corresponding values of
Base-to-derived and derived-to-base conversions of a member function
pointer can be performed by adding or subtracting (respectively) the
static offset of the base within the derived class to the stored
A call is performed as follows:
The benefit is that using the derived class virtual pointer as the base
class virtual pointer will often save a load,
and no adjustment to the
It was thought that 2b would allow the compiler to avoid
adjusting
When B and C are declared, A is a primary base in each case, so although
vcall offsets are allocated in the A-in-B and A-in-C vtables, no
For each data component D (first the primary base of C, if any, then
the non-primary, non-virtual direct base classes in declaration order,
then the non-static data members and unnamed bit-fields in declaration
order), allocate as follows:
There are two cases depending on
If dsize(C) > 0, and the byte at offset dsize(C) - 1 is
partially filled by a bit-field, and that bit-field is also a
data member declared in C (but not in one of C's proper base
classes), the next available bits are the unfilled bits at
offset dsize(C) - 1. Otherwise, the next available bits are at
offset dsize(C).
Update align(C) to max (align(C), align(T)).
Update align(C) to max (align(C), align(T')).
In either case,
update dsize(C) to include the last byte
containing (part of) the bit-field,
and update sizeof(C) to max(sizeof(C),dsize(C)).
Start at offset dsize(C),
incremented if necessary for alignment
to nvalign(D) for base classes or
to align(D) for data members.
Place D at this offset unless doing so would result in two
components (direct or indirect) of the same type having the
same offset.
If such a component type conflict occurs,
increment the candidate offset by nvalign(D)
for base classes or by align(D) for data members
and try again,
repeating until success occurs
(which will occur no later than sizeof(C) rounded up to the
required alignment).
If D is a base class, this step allocates only its non-virtual
part, i.e. excluding any direct or indirect virtual bases.
If D is a base class, update sizeof(C) to max (sizeof(C),
offset(D)+nvsize(D)).
Otherwise, if D is a potentially-overlapping data member,
update sizeof(C) to max (sizeof(C), offset(D)+max (nvsize(D), dsize(D))).
Otherwise, if D is a data member,
update sizeof(C) to max (sizeof(C), offset(D)+sizeof(D)).
If D is a base class (not empty in this case),
update dsize(C) to offset(D)+nvsize(D),
and align(C) to max (align(C), nvalign(D)).
If D is a potentially-overlapping data member,
update dsize(C) to offset(D)+max (nvsize(D), dsize(D)),
align(C) to max (align(C), align(D)).
If D is any other data member,
update dsize(C) to offset(D)+sizeof(D),
align(C) to max (align(C), align(D)).
Its allocation is similar to case (2) above,
except that additional candidate offsets are considered before
starting at dsize(C).
First, attempt to place D at offset zero.
If unsuccessful (due to a component type conflict),
proceed with attempts at dsize(C) as for non-empty bases and members.
As for that case, if there is a type conflict at dsize(C)
(with alignment updated as necessary),
increment the candidate offset by nvalign(D),
and try again,
repeating until success occurs.
Once offset(D) has been chosen, update sizeof(C) to max (sizeof(C),
offset(D)+sizeof(D)), and update align(C) to max (alignof(C),
nvalign(D)) for a base class or max (alignof(C), align(D)) for
a data member. Since D is empty, no update of dsize(C) is needed.
After all such components have been allocated, set nvalign(C) =
align(C) and nvsize(C) = sizeof(C). The values of nvalign(C) and
nvsize(C) will not change during virtual base allocation. Note that
nvsize(C) need not be a multiple of nvalign(C).
A virtual table (vtable) is a table of information used
to dispatch virtual functions,
to access virtual base class subobjects,
and to access information for runtime type identification (RTTI).
Each class that has virtual member functions or virtual bases
has an associated set of virtual tables.
There may be multiple virtual tables for a particular class,
if it is used as a base class for other classes.
However, the virtual table pointers within all the objects (instances)
of a particular most-derived class point to the same set of virtual tables.
A virtual table consists of a sequence of offsets, data pointers,
and function pointers, as well as structures composed of such items.
We will describe below the sequence of such items.
Their offsets within the virtual table are determined by that allocation
sequence and the natural ABI size and alignment,
just as a data struct would be. In particular:
In general, what we consider the address of a virtual table
(i.e. the address contained in objects pointing to a virtual table)
may not be the beginning of the virtual table.
We call it the address point of the virtual table.
The virtual table may therefore contain components at either positive or
negative offsets from its address point.
This section describes the usage and relative order of various
components that may appear in virtual tables.
Precisely which components are present in various possible virtual
tables is specified in the next section.
If present, components are present in the order described,
except for the exceptions specified.
The form of a virtual function pointer is specified by the
processor-specific C++ ABI for the implementation.
In the specific case of 64-bit Itanium shared library builds,
a virtual function pointer entry contains a pair of components
(each 64 bits):
the value of the target GP value and the actual function address.
That is, rather than being a normal function pointer,
which points to such a two-component descriptor,
a virtual function pointer entry is the descriptor.
The order of the virtual function pointers in a virtual table is
the order of declaration of the corresponding member functions in the class.
If an implicitly-declared copy assignment operator, move assignment operator,
or destructor is virtual, it is treated as if it were declared at the end of
the class, in that order.
(Implicitly-declared assignment operators may be virtual if
a base class declares a virtual assignment operator
taking a reference to a derived class type.)
An entry is added for every virtual function in a class,
including deleted functions, unless:
An override requires a return-type adjustment if
the return types are different and
have potentially incompatible representations.
C++ permits an override to differ in return type from the overridden function
only if both types are pointer-to-class or reference-to-class types and
the class type B in the overridden function is
an unambiguous base class of the class type D in the override.
For the purposes of vtable layout,
these types are considered to have potentially incompatible representations if:
When a derived class and its primary base share a virtual table,
the virtual function entries introduced by the derived class follow
those for the primary base,
so that the layout of the primary base's embedded virtual table
is the same as that of its standalone virtual table.
In particular, if the derived class overrides a base class virtual
function with a different (covariant) return type,
the entry for the derived class comes after the primary base's
embedded virtual table in declaration order,
and is the entry used for calls from the derived class without adjustment.
The entry in the embedded primary virtual table points to a routine
that adjusts the result pointer before returning.
The entries for virtual destructors are actually pairs of entries.
The first destructor,
called the complete object destructor,
performs the destruction without calling delete() on the object.
The second destructor,
called the deleting destructor,
calls delete() after destroying the object.
Both destroy any virtual bases;
a separate, non-virtual function,
called the base object destructor,
performs destruction of the object but
not its virtual base subobjects, and does not call delete().
Following the primary virtual table of a derived class are
secondary virtual tables for each of its proper base classes,
except any primary base(s) with which it shares its primary virtual table.
These are copies of the virtual tables for the respective base classes
(copies in the sense that they have the same layout,
though the fields may have different values).
We call the collection consisting of a primary virtual table along with all of
its secondary virtual tables a virtual table group.
The order in which they occur is the same as the order in which the
base class subobjects are considered for allocation in the derived object:
This ABI does not make guarantees about the layout of other virtual
tables in a virtual table group relative to a virtual table pointer
in an object or a VTT. It guarantees only the layout of the
global symbol for that virtual table
group. It does not guarantee that the virtual table pointers actually
installed in an object or a VTT will point into that global symbol.
In this section, we describe how to construct the virtual table for an class,
given virtual tables for all of its proper base classes.
To do so, we divide classes into several categories,
based on their base class structure.
Such a class has no associated virtual table,
and an object of such a class contains no virtual pointer.
The virtual table contains offset-to-top and RTTI fields
followed by virtual function pointers (as specified above).
The class has a virtual table for each proper base class that has a
virtual table. The secondary virtual table for a base class B has the
same contents as the primary virtual table for B, except that:
For a proper base class
The primary virtual table for the derived class contains entries for
each of the functions in the primary base class virtual table,
replaced by new overriding functions as appropriate. Following these
entries, there is an entry for each virtual function pointer for the
derived class (as specified above).
Structure:
The class has a virtual table for each virtual base class
that has a virtual table.
These are all secondary virtual tables,
because there are no empty or nearly empty base classes to be primary,
and they are constructed from copies of the base class
full object virtual tables according to the same rules as in Category 2,
except that the virtual table for a virtual base A also includes a vcall
offset entry for each virtual function represented in A's primary
virtual table and the secondary virtual tables from A's non-virtual bases.
The vcall offsets in the secondary virtual table for a virtual base A are
ordered as described next.
We describe the ordering from the entry closest to the virtual table address
point to that furthest.
Since the vcall offsets precede the virtual table address point,
this means that the memory address order is the reverse of that
described.
If the above listing of vcall offsets includes more than one
for a particular virtual function signature,
only the first one (closest to the virtual table address point) is allocated.
That is, an offset from primary base P (and its non-virtual bases)
eliminates any from A or its other bases,
an offset from A eliminates any from the non-primary bases,
and an offset from a non-primary base B of A eliminates any from the
bases of B.
Note that there are no vcall offsets for virtual functions declared in
a virtual base class V of A and never overridden within A or its
non-virtual bases.
Calls to such functions will use the vcall offset in V's virtual table.
The class also has a virtual table that is not copied from the virtual base
class virtual tables.
This virtual table is the primary virtual table of the class
and is addressed by the virtual table pointer at the top of the object,
which is not shared
because there are no nearly empty virtual bases to be primary.
It holds the virtual function pointer entries for the class.
This includes all entries overridden from base classes,
because there is no primary base class;
such entries are known as replicated entries
because they are already in the secondary virtual tables of the class.
The primary virtual table also has virtual base offset entries
to allow finding the virtual base subobjects.
There is one virtual base offset entry for each virtual base class,
direct or indirect.
The entries are in the reverse of the inheritance graph order.
That is, the entry for the leftmost virtual
base is closest to the address point of the virtual table.
Structure:
The rules for constructing virtual tables of the class are a combination of
the rules from Categories 2 and 3,
and can generally be determined inductively.
The differences are mostly due to the fact that virtual base classes
can now have (nearly empty) primary bases:
T's virtual table contains a virtual base offset for S.
U's virtual table contains virtual base offsets for S and T.
V's virtual table contains virtual base offsets for S, U, and T
(in reverse inheritance graph preorder),
where the vbase offset for T is for the virtual base of U,
not for the non-virtual direct base of V.
Consider in addition:
T is a primary base class for W.
Therefore, its virtual base offset for S in its embedded T-in-W virtual
table
is the only one present.
In some situations,
a special virtual table called a construction virtual table is used during
the execution of proper base class constructors and destructors.
These virtual tables are for specific cases of virtual inheritance.
During the construction of a class object, the object assumes the type
of each of its proper base classes, as each base class subobject is
constructed. RTTI queries in the base class constructor will return
the type of the base class, and virtual calls will resolve to member
functions of the base class rather than the complete class. RTTI
queries, dynamic casts and virtual calls of the object under
construction statically converted to bases of the base under
construction will dynamically resolve to the type of the base under
construction.
Normally, this behavior is accomplished by setting,
in the base class constructor,
the object's virtual table pointers to the addresses of the
virtual tables for the base class.
However, if the base class has direct or indirect virtual bases, the
virtual table pointers have to be set to the addresses of construction
virtual tables.
This is because the normal proper base class virtual tables may not hold
the correct virtual base index values to access the virtual bases of
the object under construction,
and adjustment addressed by these virtual tables may hold
the wrong this parameter adjustment if the adjustment is to cast
from a virtual base to another part of the object. The problem is
that a complete object of a proper base class and a complete object of a
derived class do not have virtual bases at the same offsets.
A construction virtual table holds the virtual function addresses,
offset-to-top,
and RTTI information associated with the base class,
and virtual base offsets and addresses of adjustor entry points with their
parameter adjustments associated with objects of the complete class.
To ensure that the virtual table pointers are set to the appropriate
virtual tables during proper base class construction,
a table of virtual table pointers,
called the VTT, which holds the addresses of construction and
non-construction virtual tables is generated for the complete class. The
constructor for the complete class passes to each proper base class
constructor a pointer to the appropriate place in the VTT where the
proper base class constructor can find its set of virtual tables.
Construction virtual tables are used in a similar way during the
execution of proper base class destructors.
An array of virtual table addresses, called the VTT,
is declared for each class type that has
indirect or direct virtual base classes.
(Otherwise,
each proper base class may be initialized
using its complete object virtual table group.)
The elements of the VTT array for a class D are in this order:
X is reachable along a virtual path from D if there exists a path
X, B1, B2, ..., BN, D in the inheritance graph such that at least one
of X, B1, B2, ..., or BN is a virtual base class. The order in which the virtual pointers appear in the VTT is
inheritance graph preorder.
Primary virtual bases require a secondary virtual pointer in the VTT
because the derived class with which they will share a virtual pointer
is determined by the most derived class in the hierarchy.
Secondary virtual pointers may be required for base classes that do
not require secondary VTTs. A virtual base with no virtual bases of
its own does not require a VTT, but does require a virtual pointer
entry in the VTT.
Each virtual table address in the VTT is the address to be assigned to the
respective virtual pointer,
i.e. the address past the end of the typeinfo pointer
(the address of the first virtual function pointer, if there are any),
not of the first vcall offset.
Parts (1) and (3) of a primary (not secondary, i.e. nested) VTT,
that is the primary and secondary virtual pointers,
are used for the final initialization of an object's virtual pointers
before the full-object initialization and later use,
and must therefore point to the main virtual table group for the class.
Those bases which do not have secondary virtual pointers in the VTT
have their virtual pointers explicitly initialized to the main virtual
table group by the constructors
(see Subobject Construction and Destruction).
The virtual pointers in the secondary VTTs and virtual VTTs are used for
subobject construction,
and may always point to special construction virtual tables laid out as
described in the following subsections.
However, it will sometimes be possible to use either the full-object
virtual table for the base class,
or its secondary virtual table for the full class being constructed.
This ABI does not specify a choice,
nor does it specify names for the construction virtual tables,
so the constructors must use the VTT rather than assuming that a
particular construction virtual table exists.
For example, suppose we have the following hierarchy:
If A2 is a virtual base of V1,
the VTT will contain more elements
(exercise left to the astute reader).
The construction virtual tables for a complete object are
emitted in the same object file as the virtual table.
So the virtual table structures for a complete object of class C include,
in no particular order:
The VTT array is referenced via its own mangled external name,
and the construction virtual tables are accessed via the VTT array,
so the latter do not have external names.
The construction virtual table group for a
proper base class subobject B (of derived class D)
does not have the same entries in the same
order as the main virtual table group for a complete object B,
as described in Virtual Table Layout above.
Some of the base class subobjects may not need construction virtual tables,
which will therefore not be present in the construction virtual table group,
even though the subobject virtual tables are present in the main virtual
table group
for the complete object.
The values of some construction virtual table entries will differ
from the corresponding entries in either the main virtual table
group for B or the virtual table group for B-in-D,
primarily because the virtual bases of B will be at different relative
offsets in a D object than in a standalone B object,
as follows:
When operator
Specifically:
(Note: if the usual array deallocation function takes two arguments,
then it is a member function whose second argument is of type size_t.
The standard guarantees (12.5 [class.free])
that this function will be passed the
number of bytes allocated with the previous array new expression.)
These rules have the following consequences:
Given the above, the following is pseudocode for processing
If a function-scope static variable or a static data member with vague
linkage (i.e., a static data member of a class template) is
dynamically initialized, then there is an associated guard variable
which is used to guarantee that construction occurs only once. The guard variable's name is mangled
based on the mangling of the guarded object name. Thus, for
function-scope static variables, if multiple instances of the function
body are emitted (e.g., due to inlining), each function uses the same
guard variable to ensure that the function-scope static is initialized
only once. Similarly, if a static data member is instantiated in
multiple object files, the initialization code in each object file
will use the same guard variable to ensure that the static data member
is initialized only once.
The size of the guard variable is 64 bits.
The first byte (i.e. the byte at the address of the full variable)
shall contain the value 0 prior to initialization of
the associated variable, and 1 after initialization is complete.
Usage of the other bytes of the guard variable is implementation-defined.
See Section 3.3.3
for the API for references to this guard variable.
The C++ programming language definition implies that information about
types be available at run time for three distinct purposes:
It is intended that two type_info pointers point to equivalent type
descriptions if and only if the pointers are equal.
An implementation must satisfy this constraint,
e.g. by using symbol preemption, COMDAT sections, or other mechanisms.
It is desirable to minimize the number of places where a
particular bit of RTTI is emitted.
For dynamic class types,
a similar problem occurs for virtual function tables,
and hence the RTTI descriptor should be emitted
with the primary virtual table for that type.
For other types, they must be emitted at the location
where their use is implied:
the object file containing the typeid, throw or catch.
Basic type information (e.g. for "int", "bool", etc.)
will be kept in the run-time support library.
Specifically, the run-time support library
should contain type_info objects for the types
X, X* and X const*,
for every X in: void, std::nullptr_t,
bool, wchar_t, char, unsigned char, signed char,
short, unsigned short, int, unsigned int, long, unsigned long, long long,
unsigned long long, float, double, long double, char8_t, char16_t, char32_t,
and the IEEE 754r decimal and half-precision floating point types.
Each of the type_info objects for X shall have type
The typeid operator produces a reference to a std::type_info structure
with the following public interface (18.5.1):
After linking and loading,
only one std::type_info structure is accessible via the external name
defined by this ABI for any particular complete type symbol
(see Vague Linkage).
Therefore,
except for direct or indirect pointers to incomplete types,
the equality and inequality operators can be
written as address comparisons
when operating on those type_info objects:
two type_info structures describe the same type
if and only if they are the same structure (at the same address).
However, in the case of pointer types,
directly or indirectly pointing to incomplete class types,
a more complex comparison is required,
described below with the RTTI layout of pointer types.
The
In a flat address space
(such as that of the Itanium architecture),
the
This implies that the type information must keep a description of the public,
unambiguous inheritance relationship of a type, as well as the const
and volatile qualifications applied to types.
We add one pointer to the
The possible derived types are:
This RTTI class may
also be used for incomplete class types when referenced by a pointer RTTI,
in which case it must be prevented from preempting
the RTTI for the complete class type,
for instance by emitting it as a static object (without external linkage).
Two
The
All but the lower 8 bits of
The low-order byte of
Note that the resulting structure is variable-length,
with the actual size depending on the number of trailing base class
descriptions.
Note that the
When the
Two
The null-terminated byte string returned by this routine is
the mangled name of the type.
Although dynamic_cast can work on pointers and references,
from the point of view of representation we need only to worry
about polymorphic class types.
Also, some kinds of dynamic_cast operations are handled at compile time
and do not need any RTTI.
There are then three kinds of truly dynamic cast operations:
The most common kind of dynamic_cast is base-to-derived in a singly
inherited hierarchy.
Dynamic casts to "void cv*" are inserted inline at compile time.
So are dynamic casts of null pointers and dynamic casts that are really
static.
This leaves the following test to be implemented in the run-time
library for truly dynamic casts of the form "dynamic_cast<T>(v)":
(see [expr.dynamic_cast] 5.2.7/8)
The first check corresponds to a "base-to-derived cast" and the second
to a "cross cast".
These tests are implemented by abi::__dynamic_cast:
Since the RTTI related exception handling routines are "personality specific",
no interfaces need to be specified in this document
(beyond the layout of the RTTI data).
This chapter describes how to define and call functions.
It also specifies the APIs of a variety of runtime utility routines
required to be part of the support library of an ABI-conforming
implementation for use by compiled code.
In addition, reference is made to the separate description of
exception handling in this ABI,
which defines a large number of runtime utility routine APIs.
In general, the calling conventions and rules for defining C++
functions in this ABI follow those specified for functions of
the corresponding type in the base C ABI. The corresponding type
is mostly determined by translating C++ constructs to their
obvious C analogues. This section specifies the behavior of
of features without analogues in C, as well as some exceptions
and extra rules required by C++-specific semantics.
For the most part, non-static member functions, including constructors
and destructors, are defined as if they were ordinary functions except
for the addition of the implicit parameters to the prototype as
described in the section on parameters.
The rules for member function
pointers may require aligning the first instruction of ordinary
non-static member functions (i.e. not constructors or destructors)
to a higher value than the platform would normally require.
Non-static member functions, including constructors and destructors,
take an implicit
Base-subobject constructors and destructors for classes with virtual
bases take an implicit
If a parameter type is a class type that is
non-trivial for the purposes of calls, the
caller must allocate space for a temporary and pass that temporary by
reference. Specifically:
A C-style variadic argument of a type that is non-trivial for the
purposes of calls is passed the same way: the address of the temporary
is passed using the normal variadic mechanism, and
An argument of class
Reference parameters are handled by passing a pointer to the object
bound to the reference.
Arguments of empty class types that are not non-trivial for the purposes
of calls are passed no differently from ordinary classes.
On Itanium, the NaT bit must be set on all registers that are associated
with the argument.
If the return type is a class type that is
non-trivial for the purposes of calls,
the caller passes an address as an implicit parameter.
The callee then constructs the return value into this address.
If the return type has a non-trivial destructor, the caller is responsible
for destroying the temporary when control is returned to it normally.
If an exception is thrown out of the callee after the return value is
constructed but before control returns to the caller, e.g. by a
throwing destructor, it is the callee's responsibility to destroy the
return value before propagating the exception to the caller. Thus,
in general, the caller is responsible for destroying the return value
after, and only after, the callee returns control to the caller normally.
The address passed need not be of temporary memory; copy elision may
cause it to point anywhere, including to global or heap-allocated memory.
C ABIs usually provide treatment for "indirect" return values, e.g. when
returning a large aggregate that cannot fit in registers. In some cases,
this treatment may not be suitable for non-trivial C++ return values, such
as if the convention requires implicit copying or does not permit the
return value to be constructed at an arbitrary address. If the treatment
exists and is suitable, it is used for non-trivial return values.
Otherwise, the pointer is passed as if it were the first parameter in
the function prototype, preceding all other parameters, including the
A return value of class
A return value of reference type is returned as a pointer to the object
bound to the reference.
A return value of an empty class type that is not non-trivial for
the purposes of calls will be returned as though it were the
following C type:
On Itanium, the NaT bit must not be set for any register associated with
this return value.
Constructors return
Some platforms are known to modify this rule to specify that constructors
return a pointer to
Destructors return
Some platforms are known to modify this rule to specify that destructors
return a pointer to
This section sketches the calling convention for virtual functions,
based on the above virtual table layout.
See also the ABI examples
document for motivating examples and potential implementations.
We explain, at a high level,
what information must be present in the virtual table for a class A
which declares a virtual function f in order that,
given an pointer of type A*,
the caller can call the virtual function f.
This section does not specify exactly where that information is located
(see above),
nor does it specify how to convert a pointer to a class
derived from A to an A*,
if that is required.
When this section uses the term function pointer it is understood
that this term may refer either to a traditional function pointer
(i.e., a pointer to a GP/address pair) or a GP/address pair itself.
Which of these alternatives is actually used
is specified elsewhere in the ABI,
but is independent of the description in this section.
Throughout this section,
we assume that A is the class for which we are creating a virtual table,
B is the most derived class in the hierarchy,
and C is the class that contains C::f,
the unique final overrider for A::f.
This section specifies the contents of the f entry in the A-in-B virtual
table.
(If A is primary base in the hierarchy,
then the A-in-B virtual table will be shared
with the derived class virtual table --
but the contents of the A portion of that virtual table
will still be as specified here.)
In all cases, the non-adjusting entry point for a virtual
function expects the `this' pointer to point to an instance of the
class in which the virtual function is defined.
In other words, the non-adjusting entry point for C::f will expect
that its `this' pointer points to a C object.
For each virtual function declared in a class C,
we add an entry to its virtual table if one is not already there
(i.e. if it is not overriding a function in its primary base).
In particular, a declaration which overrides a function inherited from
a secondary base gets a new slot in the primary virtual table.
We do this to avoid useless adjustments when calling a virtual
function through a pointer to the most derived class.
The content of this entry for class A is a function pointer,
as determined by one of the following cases.
Recall that we are dealing with a hierarchy where B is most derived,
A is a direct (or indirect) base of B defining f,
and C contains the unique final overrider C::f of A::f.
(In this case, we are creating either the primary virtual table for A,
or the A-in-B secondary virtual table.)
The virtual table contains a function pointer pointing to the
non-adjusting entry point for A::f.
In this case, we are creating the A-in-B secondary virtual table.
The virtual table contains a pointer to an entry point that performs the
adjustment from an A* to a C*,
and then transfers control to the non-adjusting entry point for C::f.
There are some exceptions to this determination of function pointers:
When a class is used as a virtual base,
we add a vcall offset slot to the beginning of its virtual table for each of
the virtual functions it provides,
whether in its primary or secondary virtual tables.
Derived classes which override these functions may use the slots to
determine the adjustment necessary.
For each direct or indirect base A of C that is not a morally virtual
base of C,
the compiler must emit, in the same object file as the code for C::f,
an A-adjusting entry point for C::f.
This entry point will expect that its
For each direct or indirect virtual base V of C such that V declares f,
the compiler must emit, in the same object file as the code for C::f,
a V-adjusting entry point for C::f.
This entry point will expect that its
For each morally virtual base M of C
such that M is not a virtual base
(and therefore must be a subobject of a virtual base V),
and such that M declares f,
the compiler must emit,
in the same object file as the code for C::f,
an M-adjusting entry point for C::f.
This entry point will expect that its
When calling a virtual function f,
through a pointer of static type B*,
the caller
(Note that in general it will be optimal to select the class which
contained the final overrider (i.e., C)
as the class to which the B* should be converted.
This class is always a satisfactory choice,
since it is known to contain a definition of f.
In addition, if the dynamic type of the object is B,
then C::f will be the function ultimately selected by the call,
which means that C's virtual table will
contain a pointer to the non-adjusting entry point,
meaning that no additional adjustments to the
However, there may be cases in which choosing a different base
subobject could be superior.
For example, if there is an alternate base D which also declares f,
and a pointer to the D subobject is already available,
then it may be better to use the D subobject rather
than converting the B* to a C*,
in order to avoid the cost of the conversion.)
Note that the ABI only specifies the multiple entry points
for a virtual function and its associated thunks;
how those entry points are provided is unspecified.
An existing compiler which uses thunks with a different means of
adjusting the virtual table pointers
can be made compliant with this ABI by only adding the vcall offsets --
the thunks need not use them.
A more efficient implementation would be to emit all of the thunks
immediately before the non-adjusting entry point to the function.
Another might emit a new copy of the function for each entry point;
this is a quality of implementation issue.
See further discussion of implementation in the
ABI examples document.
An implementation shall provide a standard entry point that a compiler
may reference in virtual tables to indicate a pure virtual function.
Its interface is:
This routine will only be called if the user calls a non-overridden
pure virtual function, which has undefined behavior according to the
C++ Standard.
Therefore, this ABI does not specify its behavior,
but it is expected that it will terminate the program,
possibly with an error message.
An implementation shall provide a standard entry point that a compiler
will reference in virtual tables to indicated a deleted virtual
function. Its interface is:
This routine shall not return and while this ABI does not otherwise
specify its behavior, it is expected that it will terminate the program,
possibly with an error message.
This section describes APIs to be used for the construction and
destruction of objects.
This includes:
The complete object constructors and destructors find the VTT,
described in Section 2.6, Virtual Tables During Object Construction,
via its mangled name. They pass the address of the subobject's
sub-VTT entry in the VTT as a second parameter when calling the base
object constructors and destructors. The base object constructors and
destructors use the addresses passed to initialize the primary virtual
pointer and virtual pointers that point to the classes which either
have virtual bases or override virtual functions with a virtual step
(have vcall offsets needing adjustment).
If a constructor calls constructors for base class
subobjects that do not need construction virtual tables,
e.g. because they have no virtual bases,
the construction virtual table parameter is not passed to the base class
subobject constructor,
and the base class subobject constructors use
their complete object virtual tables for initialization.
If a class has a non-virtual destructor, and a deleting destructor is
emitted for that class, the deleting destructor must correctly
handle the case that the
Suppose we have a subobject class D that needs a construction virtual table,
derived from a base B that needs a construction virtual table as part of D,
and possibly from others that do not need construction virtual tables.
Then the sub-VTT and constructor code for D would look like the following:
A test program for this can be found in the
ABI Examples document.
A constructor inherited from a base class can be used to initialize a derived
class object, if it is explicitly inherited by a
An inheriting constructor describes the initialization that would be performed
when a constructor inherited from a base class is selected to initialize a
derived class, including the default-initialization of the other base classes
and the non-static data members of the derived class. If the inheriting
constructor is a base subobject constructor and the inherited constructor
constructs a morally virtual base subobject, the inheriting constructor does
not take any user-declared parameters; otherwise, it takes the same parameters
as the inherited constructor. In all other respects, an inheriting constructors
behaves the same as a constructor of the derived class. For example:
Inheriting constructors are not permitted to make copies of their parameters
when passing them to the inherited constructor. If it would not be possible to
transparently forward all parameters from the inheriting constructor to the
inherited constructor, an inheriting constructor cannot be used, and a
different implementation technique (such as emitting the initialization inline)
must be used instead.
As described in Section 2.8, certain objects with
static storage duration have associated guard variables used to
support the requirement that they be initialized exactly once, the
first time the scope declaring them is entered. An implementation
that does not anticipate supporting multi-threading may simply check
the first byte (i.e., the byte with lowest address) of that guard
variable, initializing if and only if its value is zero, and then
setting it to a non-zero value.
However, an implementation intending to support
automatically thread-safe, one-time initialization
(as opposed to requiring explicit user control for thread safety)
may make use of the following API functions:
Returns 1 if the initialization is not yet complete; 0 otherwise.
This function is called before initialization takes place. If this
function returns 1, either
A thread-safe implementation will probably guard access to the first
byte of the
Sets the first byte of the guard object to a non-zero value. This
function is called after initialization is complete.
A thread-safe implementation will release the mutex acquired by
This function is called if the initialization terminates by throwing
an exception.
A thread-safe implementation will release the mutex acquired by
The following is pseudo-code showing how these functions can be used:
An implementation need not include the simple inline test of the
initialization flag in the guard variable around the above sequence.
If it does so,
the cost of this scheme,
when run single-threaded with minimal versions of the above functions,
will be two extra function calls,
each of them accessing the guard variable,
the first time the scope is entered.
An implementation supporting thread-safety on multiprocessor systems
must also guarantee that references to the initialized object do not
occur before the load of the initialization flag.
On Itanium, this can be done by using a
The intent of specifying an 8-byte structure for the guard variable,
but only describing one byte of its contents,
is to allow flexibility in the implementation of the API above.
On systems with good small lock support,
the second word might be used for a mutex lock.
On others, it might identify (as a pointer or index)
a more complex lock structure to use.
An ABI-compliant system shall provide several runtime routines for use
in array construction and destruction.
They may be used by compilers, but their use is not required.
The required APIs are:
Equivalent to Given the number and size of elements for an array and the
non-negative size of prefix padding for a cookie, allocate space
(using If The constructor may be Neither If the computed size of the allocated array object (including space
for a cookie, if specified) would exceed the implementation-defined
limit,
If the
The only requirement of the C++ Standard with respect to file scope
object construction order is that file scope objects
in a single object file are constructed in declaration order.
However, building large programs sometimes requires careful attention
to construction ordering for objects in different object files,
and a number of vendors have provided extra-lingual facilities to
control it.
This ABI does not require an implementation to support this capability,
but it specifies such a facility for those implementations that do.
This facility only controls construction order within a singled linked
object (executable or DSO).
Construction order between linked objects is determined by the
initialization ordering specified in the base ABI.
A user may specify the construction priority with the pragma:
Initialization entries with the same priority from different files
(or from other sources such as link command options)
will be executed in an unspecified order.
Initialization priority is represented in the object file by elements
of a target-specific section type,
Each implementation supporting priority initialization shall provide
a runtime library function with prototype:
The only required static linker processing is to concatenate the
A more ambitious linker implementation could sort the
The C++ Standard requires that destructors be called for global objects
when a program exits in the opposite order of construction.
Most implementations have handled this by calling the C library
The API specified below is intended to provide
standard-conforming treatment during normal program exit,
which includes executing
The runtime library shall maintain a list of termination functions
with the following information about each:
The representation of this structure is implementation defined.
All references are via the API described below.
After constructing a global (or local static) object,
that will require destruction on exit,
a termination function is registered as follows:
The registration function is not called from within the constructor.
When the user registers exit functions with
When linking any DSO containing a call to
Note that the above can be accomplished either by explicitly providing
the symbol and call in the linker, or by implicitly including a
relocatable object in the link with the necessary definitions,
using a .fini_array section for the FINI call.
Also, note that these can be omitted for an object with no calls to
When
When the main program calls
Note that the destructors must be called by
Since
Synopsis:
Behavior:
The return value is a pointer to a null-terminated array
of characters, the demangled name.
Ambiguities are possible between extern "C" object names and type
manglings,
e.g. "i" may be either an object named "i" or the built-in "int" type.
Such ambiguous arguments are assumed to be type manglings. If the user has
a set of external names to demangle, they should check that the names are
in fact mangled (that is, begin with "_Z") before passing them to
If there is an error in demangling, the return value is a null pointer.
The user can examine *status to find out what kind of error occurred.
Meaning of error indications:
Memory management:
See Exception Handling document,
currently just the base psABI-level material,
and the
HP exception handling working paper,
8 December 1999.
This section specifies the mangling, i.e. encoding,
of external names (external in the sense of being visible
outside the object file where they occur). The encoding is
formalized as a derivation grammar along with the explanatory
text, in a modified BNF with the following conventions:
See the separate table
summarizing the encoding characters used as terminals.
Also see additional mangling examples
in the separate ABI examples document.
In the various explanatory examples,
we use
Mangled names containing
Entities with C linkage and global namespace variables are not mangled.
Mangled names have the general structure:
A
ABI mangling is designed to ensure that entities receive the
same mangling if and only if they are the same entity according
to the C++ standard's one-definition rule (ODR) and the
various rules for declaration matching (such as
[over.dcl] and
[temp.over]. Those rules are quite
complex, and they dictate the results of mangling, and so it
should not be surprising that the mangling rules are also complex.
The ABI must be closely involved with the evolution of those
language rules to ensure that they remain implementable with
mangling. When the rules say that an ODR violation has
undefined behavior, that is often because it is impractical to
ensure that the entities involved will have different manglings.
Similarly, when the rules forbid certain constructs from the
signature of a declaration, that is often because that construct
would create unreasonable problems for mangling.
Mangling must sometimes be able to distinguish entities that
are not equivalent under the ODR and declaration-matching
rules. This is true even if the entities would not be
distinguishable by C++ code because, say, every name lookup
which included both of them would be ambiguous. For example,
different translation units might declare similar but not
eqivalent function templates in the same namespace:
The C++ standard grants implementations broad flexibility to
ignore certain kinds of differences. For example, the rules
in [temp.over.link] for
functionally-equivalent function templates could be used to
shorten manglings in certain cases where instantiation-dependence
provably has no effect. This ABI generally does not take
advantage of that flexibility.
It is sometimes necessary to mangle unresolved and uninstantiated
language constructs such as types and expressions that appear
within templates. This accounts for a lot of the complexity of
entity mangling in this ABI.
In many places, the mangling grammar formally allows a single
construct to be mangled in one of several different ways.
Usually there is one production which allows a fully-resolved
value or entity reference, and there is another production that
allows an expression or unresolved entity reference. As an
example, this can be clearly seen in the mangling for
array types, which gives
one mangling for a constant bound and another for an expression.
There are two reasons for this. First, manglings using the
fully-resolved case are often significantly more compact.
More importantly, though, the language often treat dependent
and non-dependent constructs differently. For example,
[temp.over.link] gives rules for
when two expressions that involve template parameters are
considered equivalent, and those rules are reflected in
this ABI's expression mangling rules. Conversely, expressions
that don't involve template parameters but are used in
constant-evaluated contexts (such an array length) are
considered to be equivalent if and only if they resolve
to the same value. Mangling a non-dependent expression using
its expression structure could incorrectly produce different
manglings for different expressions that resolve to the same
value, and it could incorrectly produce the same mangling for
expressions that resolve to different values but happen to be
spelled the same.
It is therefore important to use the right production given
the dependence of the construct in question. The standard
defines several different kinds of dependence, such as
value dependence and type dependence. In
general, the rule that should be used in mangling is
instantiation
dependence: if a construct in instantiation-dependent,
it should use the general production, and otherwise it
should use the narrow production. The grammar below will
state clearly when certain productions are only for
instantiation-dependent cases.
For the purposes of mangling, the name of an anonymous union is
considered to be the name of the first named data member found by a
pre-order, depth-first, declaration-order walk of the data members of
the anonymous union. If there is no such data member (i.e., if all of
the data members in the union are unnamed), then there is no way for a
program to refer to the anonymous union, and there is therefore no
need to mangle its name.
All of these examples:
In general, the mangling of an entity's name depends on where it is
declared. Entities declared at global scope, or in namespace
The manglings of template specializations and non-template entities
closely overlap, but they can generally be disambiguated by whether
the name is followed by the A <nested-name> recursively
breaks down the enclosing scope until the global scope is reached. A
<prefix> refers to a scope;
confusingly, a <template-prefix>
actually refers to a template name (without template arguments).
Class and namespace members are always mangled with a
<nested-name>, even if they are
template specializations and there is an existing substitution for the
template (and therefore the name could in principle be mangled as if
it were a <unscoped-template-name>).
When a <nested-name> refers
to a non-static class member function, the CV-qualifiers and
ref-qualifiers of the function are prefixed to the compound name.
This prefix is required even when the member function is a
specialization of a substituted template and therefore those
qualifiers could be inferred from the substitution target.
<identifier> is a pseudo-terminal representing the characters in the unqualified identifier for the entity in the source code. This ABI does not yet specify a mangling for identifiers containing characters outside of
Note that <source-name> in the productions for <unqualified-name>
may be either a function or data object name when derived from <name>,
or a class or enum name when derived from <type>.
The GNU Note that for member functions of a class template that are not member
templates, the type in question is that of the instantiation, so tags that
appear only in the template do not affect mangling:
If no arguments are specified for the attribute on an inline namespace, the
namespace has its own name as a tag. Tags on an inline namespace are not
represented in the mangled name of the namespace, but they are subject to the
above tag propagation. For example:
<number> is a pseudo-terminal representing a decimal integer,
with a leading 'n' for negative integers.
It is used in <source-name> to provide the byte
length of the following identifier.
<number>s appearing in mangled names never have leading zeroes,
except for the value zero, represented as '0'.
A <seq-id> is a sequence number in base 36, using digits and upper case letters. Generally, wherever <seq-id> appears, the first element is encoded by the absence of a number, and the remainder of the sequence is encoded starting at 0. As with <number>, a <seq-id> has a leading zero only if that is the only digit.
For example, substitutions are mangled as
Operators appear as function names,
and in nontype template argument expressions.
Unlike Cfront,
unary and binary operators using the same symbol have different encodings.
Most operators are encoded using exactly two letters,
the first of which is lowercase.
Vendors who define builtin extended operators (e.g.
Associated with a virtual table are several entities with mangled
external names: the virtual table itself, the VTT for construction,
the typeinfo structure, and the name it references.
Each has a <special-name> encoding that is a simple two-character code,
prefixed to the type encoding for the class to which it applies.
Virtual function override thunks come in two forms.
Those overriding from a non-virtual base,
with fixed
Virtual function override thunks with covariant returns are twice as complex.
Just as normal virtual function override thunks must adjust the this
pointer before calling the base function,
those with covariant returns must adjust the return pointer after they
return from the base function.
So the mangling must also encode a fixed offset to a non-virtual base,
and possibly an offset to a vbase offset in the vtable to get to the
virtual base containing the result subobject.
We achieve this by encoding two <call-offset> components,
either of which may be either virtual or non-virtual.
Constructors and destructors are simply special cases of
<unqualified-name>,
where the final <unqualified-name> of a nested name
is replaced by one of the following:
The <base class type> in an inheriting
constructor mangling identifies the base class in which the inherited
constructor was originally declared.
Some of the symbols for constructor and destructor variants are optional.
Initialization of certain objects with static storage duration
requires a guard variable to prevent multiple
initialization. The mangled name of a guard variable is the name of
the guarded variable prefixed with
The initializers of objects with static storage duration may introduce
temporaries whose lifetime is extended to have static storage
duration; this may also apply recursively to the initializers of
those temporaries. If an initializer is visible to multiple
translation units, those translation units must agree on the addresses
of the temporaries. Therefore the temporaries must be given a
consistent name and vague linkage. The mangled
name of a temporary is the name of the non-temporary object in whose
initializer they appear, prefixed with For example, consider the following code:
Types are encoded according to their compound structure: the tree of
type constructors, such as
Simple forms of type structure, such as reference and pointer types, are
encoded with a single-character prefix. More complex forms of type
structure, such as qualifiers and function types, require individual
discussion below.
Vendors who define extended type qualifiers (e.g.
In cases where multiple order-insensitive qualifiers are present,
they should be ordered (beginning closest to the base type) 'K', 'V', 'r',
and 'U' (farthest from the base type), with the 'U' qualifiers in
alphabetical order by the vendor name (with alphabetically earlier names
closer to the base type). For example,
For purposes of substitution, given a qualified type, the base type
is substitutible and the type with all the K, V, and r qualifiers plus
any vendor extended types in the same order-insensitive set is substitutible;
however, types with only a subset of those qualifiers are not.
That is, given a type
For example,
Builtin types are represented by single-letter codes:
Vendors who define builtin extended types shall encode them
as a 'u' prefix followed by the name in <length,I> form,
followed by any arguments to the extended type.
Function types are composed from their parameter types and possibly the
result type.
Except at the outer level type of an <encoding>,
or in the <encoding> of an otherwise delimited external name in a
<template-param> or <local-name> function encoding,
these types are delimited by an "F..E" pair.
For purposes of substitution
(see Compression below),
delimited and undelimited function types are considered the same.
Whether the mangling of a function type includes the return type
depends on the context and the nature of the function.
The rules for deciding whether the return type is included are:
Empty parameter lists,
whether declared as
The mangling of CV-qualifiers and ref-qualifiers on a function type
differs according to context. When mangling the name of a non-static
member function, the CV-qualifiers and ref-qualifiers of that function
are encoded at the beginning of
the
When an exception-specification (i.e.,
A transaction-safe function type is encoded with a "Dx" before the "F". This
affects only type mangling; a transaction-safe function has the same mangling
as a non-transaction-safe function.
A "Y" prefix for the bare function type encodes extern "C" in
implementations which distinguish between function types with "C" and
"C++" language linkage. This affects only type mangling, since extern
"C" function objects have unmangled names.
For the purposes of substitution, the CV-qualifiers and ref-qualifier
of a function type are an indivisible part of the type; that is, when
mangling
When a function parameter is a C++11 function parameter pack, its type
is mangled with
The C++11
A class, union, or enum type is simply a name.
It may be a simple <unqualified-name>,
with or without a template argument list,
or a more complex <nested-name>.
Thus, it is encoded like a function name,
except that no CV-qualifiers are present in a nested name specification.
An exception, however, is that class
Unnamed class, union, and enum types that aren't closure types, that
haven't acquired a "name for linkage purposes" (through a typedef), and
that aren't anonymous union types, follow
the same rule when they are defined in class scopes,
with the underlying <unqualified-name> an <unnamed-type-name> of
the form
(The mangling of such unnamed types defined in namespace scope is
generally unspecified because they do not have to match across
translation units. An implementation must only ensure that naming
collisions are avoided. The mangling of such unnamed types in local
scopes is described in Scope Encoding.
The encoding of closure types is described in a
Closure Types (Lambdas).)
For example:
Array types encode their array bound and element type. Note that
"array" parameters to functions are encoded as pointer types.
The array bound (but not the
The second rule is used when the array bound is an
instantiation-dependent
expression. For example:
Pointer-to-member types encode the class and member types:
For example,
A reference to a template parameter is mangled using the index
of the parameter, with a special mangling for the first parameter.
The sequence of parameters is therefore
For example:
Note that a template parameter reference is a
substitution candidate.
As a substitution, it is treated as distinct from the actual
template argument, including in recursive positions.
For example, in the mangling of the following function template
specialization, the first incidence of
Typically, only references to function template parameters occurring
within the dependent signature of the template are mangled this way.
In other contexts, template instantiation replaces references
to template parameters with the actual template arguments, and mangling
should mangle such references exactly as if they were that template
argument. For example:
Function parameters referenced in other parameter types or in
late-specified return types are handled similarly to template
parameters, but involve a few more subtleties.
Let L be the number of function prototype scopes from the innermost one
(in which the parameter reference occurs) up to (and including) the one
containing the declaration of the referenced parameter. If the parameter
declaration clause of the innermost function prototype scope has been
completely seen, it is not counted (in that case -- which is perhaps the
most common -- L can be zero). For example:
Template argument lists appear after the unqualified template name,
and are bracketed by I/E. This is used in names for specializations
in particular, but also in types and scope identification. Template
argument packs are bracketed by J/E to distinguish them from other
arguments.
Type arguments appear using their regular encoding.
For example, the template class "A<char, float>" is encoded as "1AIcfE".
A slightly more involved example is
a dependent function parameter type "A<T2>::X"
(T2 is the second template parameter)
which is encoded as "N1AIT0_E1XE",
where the "N...E" construct is used to describe a qualified name.
Expressions must be mangled in several contexts.
When mangling the name of a specialized template, non-type
template arguments are mangled as expressions. These
expressions are typically very simple, and they do not
necessarily reflect any argument expression that was used
in source. See the section on mangling
template arguments for
more detail.
More generally, when mangling the signature of a function
template, any
instantiation-dependent
expressions (e.g. in an array bound,
In general, expression manglings reflect a prefix traversal of the
syntactic expression tree, with parentheses omitted. (Parentheses
may be ignored because they are implicit in the prefix representation
and typically do not affect semantics. However, a parenthesized
Each expression mangling begins with a code (typically two letters)
indicating the kind of expression, which dictates the form of
the rest of the mangling. For overloadable operators, this code is
the same as the For example, if
If the operand of a A production for <expression> that directly specifies an operation code (e.g., for the The optional " If an implementation supports the full C99 designated initializer syntax (as an extension), a designator list comprising multiple designators results in
multiple nested <braced-expression>s. For example,
Literal arguments, e.g. "A<42L>",
are encoded with their type and value.
Negative integer values are preceded with "n";
for example, "A<-42L>" becomes "1AILln42EE".
The bool value false is encoded as 0, true as 1.
Floating-point literals are encoded using a fixed-length lowercase
hexadecimal string corresponding to the internal representation,
high-order bytes first. For example: "Lf bf800000 E" is -1.0f on
platforms conforming to IEEE 754.
The encoding for a literal of an enumerated type is the encoding of the
type name followed by the encoding of the numeric value of the literal
in its base integral type
(which deals with values that don't have names declared in the type).
String literals are encoded using their type, but not their value.
For example, L"abc" and L"123" are both encoded as "LA4_KwE"
("array [4] of const wchar_t").
The pointer literal expression
A reference to an entity with external linkage is encoded with
"L<mangled name>E".
For example:
The <encoding> of an extern "C" function is treated like
global-scope data,
i.e. as its <source-name> without a type.
For example:
When encoding template signatures, a name appearing in the source code
cannot always be resolved to a specific entity: In such cases the
Entities declared in non-global scopes must include their scope in
their mangled name. For entities declared outside of function
definitions, this is dictated by the rules laid out for <name>. Entities declared within function
definitions usually do not require a well-defined mangling because
only one translation unit has access to the entity. However,
different translation units must agree about the address of entities
declared within inline functions, including template specializations.
Therefore this ABI defines a mangling for even local entities.
The mangling of a local entity is composed of three elements: the
mangling of the enclosing function, the mangling of the entity
relative to the function, and an optional discriminator within the
function:
The enclosing function is the closest function enclosing the
entity. That is, when an entity E is declared within a
function that is itself local to another function, the
<encoding> beginning the
mangling of E will itself be a
<local-name>,
perhaps recursively.
The name of a declared local entity is mangled with the rules for
<name> as if the function were the
global scope. That is, an entity declared directly within the
function (e.g. a local type or It is possible to declare multiple entities with the same name
within a function if they are declared in different scopes. In this
case, a discriminator must be added to the
<local-name>. Entities with
the same "top-level" name are numbered in
lexical order within
the function definition. A discriminator is added only for the second
and later occurrences of the same name, and so the
<number> in the discriminator
is actually n-2 for the nth occurrence. "Top-level"
here means the name declared directly in the local scope; e.g.,
if there are three classes named For unnamed local types (excluding types with a name for linkage
purposes), the "name" is encoded as an
<unnamed-type-name> of
the form
For example:
The second production in <local-name>
is used for string literals. The discriminator is used only if there
is more than one, for the second and subsequent ones. In this case
again <number> is n-2 for
the nth distinct string literal, in
lexical order, appearing in
the function. Multiple references to the same string literal produce
one string object with one name in the sequence. Note that this
assumes that the same string literal occurring twice in a given
function in fact represents a single entity, i.e. has a unique
address.
For entities in constructors and destructors, the mangling of the
complete object constructor or destructor is used as the base function
name, i.e. the
Example:
A lambda expression introduces a unique class type called
closure type. In some contexts, such closure types are
unique to the translation unit: This ABI therefore does not specify an
encoding for such cases (but an implementation must ensure that any
internal encoding does not conflict with this ABI).
For example:
If the context is the body of a function (inline and/or template), the
closure type is encoded like any other local entity (see
Scope Encoding above). For example:
If the context is a default argument (of a member function parameter)
appearing in a class definition, the closure class and its members are encoded as follows:
If the context of a closure type is an initializer for a class
member (static or nonstatic), inline variable, or variable template,
it is encoded in a qualified name with a
In a generic lambda, uses of
Lexical ordering is used for numbering local entities (named and unnamed
local classes and enumerations, closure types, and static local variables)
when there is no other way of distinguishing them. Except as described below,
all local entities are to be numbered, even if subsequent optimization makes
some of them unnecessary, or no mangled name is actually required for
some of them.
The order of entities is the source order of a key token unique to the
entity as if:
In all cases, this is meant to imitate the numbering that would
be produced by a simple implementation which numbered entities as it
processed the source and recursively expanded packs. Since discarded
substatements of if constexpr are still processed in
non-template code, entities within them are still numbered.
Entities may be lexically nested without being in different
contexts for the purposes of mangling. For example, the lambdas in
All entities from one expansion of a pack are considered to occur
lexically before any entities from the next expansion of the same pack,
but the ordering is otherwise based on the original token sequence.
This is expected to match the numbering that would be established for
the corresponding non-template generated by substitution into the template.
As a consequence of these rules, the entity instantiated for a particular
source construct can have a different mangling number in different
instantiations of the same template. An entity appearing in the original
source may also go entirely un-numbered if it appears in a discarded
sub-statement of
Note that the numbering of entities appearing within a
To minimize the length of external names,
we use two mechanisms,
a substitution encoding to eliminate repetition of name components,
and abbreviations for certain common names.
Each non-terminal in the grammar above for which <substitution>
appears on the right-hand side is both a source of future substitutions
and a candidate for being substituted.
There are two exceptions that appear to be substitution
candidates from the grammar, but are explicitly excluded:
All substitutions are for entities that would appear in a symbol table.
In particular,
we make substitutions for prefixes of qualified names,
but not for arbitrary components of them.
Thus, the components ::n1::foo() and ::n2:foo() appearing in the same
name would not result in substituting for the second "foo."
Similarly, we do not substitute for expressions,
though names appearing in them might be substituted.
The reason for this is to facilitate implementations that use the
symbol table to keep track of components that might be substitutable.
Note that the above exclusion of function and operator names from
consideration for substitution does not exclude the full
function entity, i.e. its name plus its signature encoding.
Logically, the substitutable components of a mangled name are
considered left-to-right,
components before the composite structure of which they are a part.
If a component has been encountered before,
it is substituted as described below.
This decision is independent of whether its components have been substituted,
so an implementation may optimize by considering large structures
for substitution before their components.
If a component has not been encountered before,
its mangling is identified,
and it is added to a dictionary of substitution candidates.
No entity is added to the dictionary twice.
The type of a non-static member function is considered to be
different, for the purposes of substitution, from the type of a
namespace-scope or static member function whose type appears similar.
The types of two non-static member functions are considered to be
different, for the purposes of substitution, if the functions are
members of different classes. In other words, for the purposes of
substitution, the class of which the function is a member is
considered part of the type of function.
Substitutions are mangled using the usual rules for <seq-id>:
Substitutable components are numbered left-to-right. A component
is earlier in the substitution dictionary than the structure of which
it is a part. All substitutable components are numbered, except those
that have already been numbered for substitution. For example:
Note that substitutable components are the represented symbolic constructs,
not their associated mangling character strings.
Thus, a substituted object matches its unsubstituted form,
and a delimited <function-type> matches its <bare-function-type>.
In addition,
the following catalog of abbreviations of the form "Sx" are used:
Note that the abbreviation St does not require N...E delimiters unless
either followed by more than one additional composite name component,
or preceded by CV-qualifiers or a ref-qualifier for a member function.
For example:
Many objects in C++ are not clearly part of a single object file,
but are required by the ODR to have a single definition.
This section identifies, for such objects,
where (i.e. in which objects) they should be emitted,
and what special treatment might be required if duplicates are possible.
In many cases,
we will deal with duplicates by putting possibly duplicated objects
in distinct ELF sections or groups of sections,
and using the COMDAT feature of
Note that nothing in this section should be construed to require COMDAT
usage for objects with internal linkage unless they may in fact be
referenced outside the translation unit where they appear,
for instance due to inlining.
It may sometimes be necessary or desirable to reference an out-of-line
copy of a function declared inline,
i.e. to reference a global symbol naming the function.
This may occur because the implementation cannot, or chooses not to,
inline the function, or because it needs an address rather than a call.
In such a case,
the function is to be emitted in each object where its name is referenced.
A COMDAT group is used to eliminate duplicates,
with the mangled name of the function as the identifying symbol.
Inline functions, whether or not declared as such,
and whether they are inline or out-of-line copies,
may reference static data or character string literals,
that must be kept in common among all copies
by using the local symbol mangling defined above.
These objects are named according to the rules for local names in the
Scope Encoding section above,
and the definition of each is emitted in a COMDAT group,
identified by the symbol name described in the
Scope Encoding section above.
Each COMDAT group must be emitted in any object with references
to the symbol for the object it contains, whether inline or out-of-line.
Some objects with static storage duration have associated guard variables
used to ensure that they are initialized only once
(see 3.3.3).
If the object is emitted using a COMDAT group,
the guard variable must be too.
It is suggested that it be emitted in the same COMDAT group as the
associated data object,
but it may be emitted in its own COMDAT group,
identified by its name.
In either case, it must be weak.
Virtual tables for dynamic classes are emitted as follows:
All of the following must be emitted whenever tables are emitted:
If the emission of the virtual tables is not unique (as defined
above), they are emitted with vague linkage in a single COMDAT
group, using the mangled name for the virtual table as the COMDAT
identifier. On platforms that do not use COMDATs, the tables are
emitted separately, and unreferenced tables can be omitted.
The key function is the first non-pure virtual function that is
not inline at the point of class definition.
Note that if the key function is not inline in the class definition,
but its later definition is inline, it will be emitted in every object
containing the definition.
The RTTI
The RTTI
The RTTI
The RTTI
The RTTI NTBS name object for a type is emitted in every object
that references it, with vague linkage using the NTBS mangled name
as the COMDAT identifier. Vague linkage is required even for classes
where the
Constructors and destructors for a class, whether implicitly-defined
or user-defined, are emitted under the same rules as other functions.
That is, user-defined constructors or destructors, unless the function
is declared inline, or has internal linkage, are emitted where
defined, with their complete, and base object variants. For
destructors, in classes with a virtual destructor, the deleting
variant is emitted as well. A user-defined constructor or destructor
with non-inline, internal linkage is emitted where defined, with only
the variants actually referenced. Implicitly-defined or inline
user-defined constructors and destructors are emitted where
referenced, each in its own COMDAT group identified by the constructor
or destructor name.
This ABI does not require the generation or use of allocating constructors or
inheriting constructors, and does not require the generation or use of deleting
destructors for classes without a virtual destructor. However, if an
implementation emits such functions, it must use the external names specified
in this ABI. If such a function has external linkage, it must be emitted
wherever referenced, in a COMDAT group whose name is the external name of the
function.
An instantiation of a class template requires:
An instantiation of a function template or member function template
is emitted in any object where its symbol is referenced (non-inline),
in a COMDAT group identified by the function name.
As described in the Itanium psABI,
Itanium implementations shall produce unwind table entries in a
[160602]
Describe [160907]
Introduce layout restrictions on virtual table pointers stored in objects and VTTs. [151021]
Support transaction-safe functions. [151019]
Add mangling for unresolved names rooted in template
template parameters. [150518]
Allow arbitrary arguments (encoded as template arguments)
in the mangling of vendor-specific type qualifiers. [150502]
Clarify mangling of nested and local names and correct
an ambiguity in prefix mangling. [150204]
Fix alignment calculation for empty proper base classes. [150204]
Add mangling for lifetime-extended temporaries. [150204]
Add mangling for captured template parameter packs. [150204]
Add mangling for braced initializer lists. [150204]
Define behavior for variadic arguments of non-trivial type. [140427]
Add mangling for dependent elaborated type specifiers. [130911]
Add mangling for null template arguments. [130710]
Add mangling for [130617]
Fix an editorial error in the mangling of floating-point literals. [130606]
Clarify rules for POD types in the face of the C++11 changes to the
definition of POD. Minor restructuring for clarity in the mangling
section. [130422]
Add mangling for [130403]
Add mangling for ref-qualifiers on function types. [121211]
Add [120925]
Add [110306]
Update description of mangling for argument packs. [110306]
Update description of mangling for argument packs. [110301]
Change mangling for argument packs. [101124]
Revise mangling specification to cover instantiation-dependent
expressions. [100625]
Add [100212]
Permit mangling of additional expression forms as template
arguments. [091124]
Document passing for IEEE 754r decimal and half-precision floating
point types. [091113]
Document mangling for IEEE 754r decimal and half-precision floating
point types. [091007]
Document handling of lambdas. [090715]
Document handling of deleted virtual functions. [090312]
Remove type stub expressions. Add mangling for [090102]
Remove mangling for N-argument functional casts. [081210]
Add manglings for type stub expressions, call expressions, char*_t,
and N-argument functional casts. Change argument pack mangling. [080707]
Add manglings for IEEE 754r decimal and half-precision floating
point types. [072507]
Add mangling for variadic templates and decltype. [071207]
Add mangling for rvalue references. [031006]
Clarify that guard variables are used to guard static data members
of class templates, as well as function-scope statics. [030806]
Specify that function pointers in virtual tables are address/GP
pairs on Itanium. [050504]
Remove use of [050211]
Reverse treatment of ambiguous arguments to __cxa_demangle (3.4). [041118]
Clarify the layout of bit-fields. [041025]
Indicate that the TC1 definition of POD is intended in the section
defining a "POD for the purpose of layout". Clearly
indicate that an array whose elements are not PODs for the purpose
of layout is itself not a POD for the purpose of layout. [040923]
Clarify behavior of [040219]
Clarify substition of member function types. [031128]
Fix alphabetization of company names. [031123]
Add note about forward references to template parameters in member
template conversion operators. [031102]
Specify the behavior of [030905]
Specify the behavior of [030609]
Use [030518]
Specify behavior of [030518]
Define "POD for the purpose of layout." [030316]
Add acknowledgements section. [030313]
Correct broken links and incorrect formatting. [030103]
Clarify definition of substantively different types.
[021222]
Document mangling for anonymous unions. [021204]
Remove note about 32-bit RTTI variation. [021125]
Clarify guard functions. [021110]
Clarify definition of nearly empty class. [021110]
Clarify ordering of string literals in mem-initializer-list. [021110]
Remove unnecessary V-adjusting thunks. [021110]
Clarify VTT contents. [021021]
Specify place and manner of emission for deleting destructors. [021021]
Clarify mangling of pointer-to-member functions. [021016]
Clarify mangling of floating-point literals. [021014]
Clarify use of [021011]
Add mangling for unary plus. [021008]
Make the names used for constructors and destructor entry
points consistent throughout. [021008]
Define manglings for typename types. [020916]
Clarify ordering of functions in virtual function table.
Correct mangling substitution example. [020906]
Add ternary expression variant.
Remove use of "low-order" to describe bytes in
guard variables. [020827]
Clarify definition of nearly empty class, dsize, nvsize, nvalign. [020827]
Clarify handling of tail-padding. [020326]
Clarify wording in [020220]
Clarify pointer to member function mangling (5.1.5). [010407]
Don't assume that virtual functions can be called through
intermediate bases.
Add notes about missed opportunities.
The VTT parm isn't mangled, either. [010315]
Many outstanding updates.
Empty classes passed as ordinary classes (3.1.3).
Secondary virtual pointers for subobjects reachable via a
virtual path (text of 2.6.1, text and example in 2.6.2).
Note about locating virtual bases statically during
construction (2.6.1).
Rename IA-64 to Itanium throughout.
Add __cxa_vec_cleanup (3.3.4). [000817]
Updates from 17 August meeting, email. [000807]
Added base document section (1.5).
Further RTTI field name cleanup (2.9.4).
Update proposed one-time construction API (3.3.3).
Update proposed object construction priority API (3.3.5).
Removed <name> substitution (5.1.2).
COMDAT not generally necessary for internal linkage (5.2).
COMDAT for local static guard variables (5.2.2). [000727]
Updates from 20 July meeting.
Added section on controlling object construction order (3.3.5). [000707]
Introduce consistent type_info field names (2.9.4).
Removed vmi flags for publicly/non-publicly inherited bases (2.9.4).
Collect all construction/destruction APIs in one section (3.3).
Added one-time initialization API (3.3.3).
Vector construction/destruction routines are extern "C" (3.3.4).
Added routines for vector construction/destruction (3.3.4).
Added copy construction runtime API (3.3.4).
Make Alex's changes in mangling grammar (5.1).
Add <special-name> cases for covariant override thunks (5.1.4).
Allow expressions as array type dimensions (5.1.5).
Discuss vague linkage for virtual function override thunks (5.2.6). [000621]
Add scope section 1.4.
Specify guard variables and vague linkage of static data (5.2.2)
and instantiated templates (5.2.4).
Clarify vcall offsets (2.5.3), VTT (2.6.2), mangling compression rules
(5.1.7), and mangling examples. [000511]
Specify 32-bit form of vmi_offset_flags.
Add export template note. [000505]
Updates from 4 May meeting.
VTT is preorder, like everything else.
Add issue C-3 destructor API.
Added demangler API.
Yet another try at the nested-name mangling grammar.
Don't mangle builtin types (except vendor extended ones).
Reverse mangling substitution order, and fix mangling
substitution examples.
Add vague linkage information for instantiated templates.
Specify location of unwind tables. [000502]
Fixed mangling of template parameters again. [000427]
Reorganization and section numbering.
Added non-virtual function calling
conventions. [000417]
Updates from 17 April meeting.
Clarify order of vcall offsets.
More elaboration of construction virtual table.
Specification of COMDAT RTTI name.
Reorganization of pointer RTTI.
Modify mangling grammar to clarify substitution in compound names.
Clarify Vague Linkage section. [000407]
Updates from 6 April meeting, email.
More elaboration of construction vtable.
Updates/issues in RTTI.
Minor mangling changes.
Added Vague Linkage section. [000327]
Updates from 30 March meeting.
Define base classes to include self, proper base classes.
Modify local function mangling per JFW proposal. [000327]
Updates from 23 March meeting.
Adopt construction vtable Proposal B, and rewrite.
Further work on mangling, especially substitution. [000320]
Clarify class size limit.
Editorial changes in vtable components description.
Add alternate to construction vtable proposal.
Clarification in array cookie specification.
Removed COMMON proxy from class RTTI.
Extensive changes to mangling writeup. [000314]
Construction vtable modifications.
RTTI modifications for incomplete class types.
Mangling rework: grammar, new constructs, function return types. [000309]
Add limits section.
Specify NULL member pointer values.
Combine vtable content and order sections; clarify ordering.
Specify when distinct virtual function entries are needed for
overriders.
Define (and modify) vector constructor/destructor runtime APIs.
Virtual base offsets are promoted from non-virtual bases. [000228]
Add thunk definition.
Revise inheritance graph order definition.
Fix member function pointer description (no division by two).
Move bit-field allocation description (much modified)
to the non-virtual-base allocation description.
Replace virtual function calling convention description. [000228]
Add thunk definition.
Revise inheritance graph order definition.
Fix member function pointer description (no division by two).
Move bit-field allocation description (much modified)
to the non-virtual-base allocation description.
Replace virtual function calling convention description. [000217]
Add excess-size bit-field specification.
Add namespace/header section.
Touch up array new cookies.
Remove construction vtable example to new file.
Add mangling proposal. [000214]
Complete array new cookie specification.
Remove unnecessary RTTI flags.
Correct repeated inheritance flag description.
Move all type_info subclasses in namespace abi, not namespace std.
Note requirements for an implementation to prevent users from
emitting invalid vtables for RTTI classes.
Include construction vtable proposal. [000203]
Incorporate discussion of 3 Febrary.
Remove __reference_type_info (issue A-22).
Restructure struct RTTI and flags (issue A-23).
Clarify __base_class_info layout. [000125]
Incorporate discussion of 20 January, generally clarifications.
Resolved A-19 (choice of a primary virtual base).
Answered Nathan's questions about RTTI.
Included RTTI "Deliberations" as rationale notes in the specification,
or removed redundant ones.
Added array operator new section. [000119]
Clarify when virtual base offsets are required.
Note that a vtable has offset-to-top and RTTI entries for classes
with virtual bases even if there are no virtual functions.
Resolve allocation of a virtual base class that is a primary base
for another base (A-17).
Resolve choice of a primary virtual base class that is a primary
base for another base (A-19).
Describe the (non-)effect of virtual bases on the alignment of
the non-virtual part of a class as the base of another class (A-18). [991230]
Integrate proposed resolution of A-16, A-17 in base class layout.
Add outstanding questions list, and clean up questions in text. [991229]
Clarify definition of nearly empty class, layout of virtual bases. font color=blue>[991203]
Added description of vfunc calling convention from Jason. [991104]
Noted pair of vtable entries for virtual destructors. [991019]
Modified RTTI proposal for 14 October decisions. [991006]
Added RTTI proposal. [990930]
Updated to new vtable layout proposal. [990811]
Described member pointer representations, virtual table layout. [990730]
Selected first variant for empty base allocation; removed others. Chapter 1: Introduction
Recommendation for new platforms: consider
forbidding the use of function templates on your platform so that
the ABI can remove these expression-mangling rules.
1.1 Definitions
operator delete) for T.
class A : public B, public C,
A is walked first,
then B and its subobjects,
and then C and its subobjects.)
p is a type-dependent identifier, the expression sizeof(sizeof(p))
is neither type-dependent, nor value-dependent, but it is instantiation-dependent (and could
turn out to be invalid if after substitution of template arguments p turns out to
have an incomplete type).
Similarly, a type expressed in source code is instantiation-dependent if the source
form includes an instantiation-dependent expression. For example, the type form
double[sizeof(sizeof(p))] (with p a type dependent identifier)
is instantiation-dependent.
Such classes may be primary base classes even if virtual,
sharing a virtual pointer with the derived class.
Where references to the ISO C++ are made in this paragraph, the Technical
Corrigendum 1 version of the standard is intended.
There have been multiple published revisions to the ISO C++ standard,
and each one has included a different definition of POD. To ensure
interoperation of code compiled according to different revisions of
the standard, it is necessary to settle on a single definition for a
platform. A platform vendor may choose to follow a different revision
of the standard, but by default, the definition of POD under this ABI
is the definition from the 2003 revision (TC1).
this)
or other parts of the environment
before transferring control to the target function,
and possibly making further modifications after its return.
A thunk may contain as little as an instruction to be executed prior to
falling through to an immediately following target function,
or it may be a full function with its own stack frame that does
a full call to the target function.
1.2 Limits
1.3 Namespace and Header
cxxabi.h will be provided by
implementations that declares these APIs.
The reference header file included with this ABI definition
shall be the authoritative definition of the APIs.
__cxxabiv1.
The header file will also declare a namespace alias abi
for __cxxabiv1.
It is expected that users will use the alias,
and the remainder of the ABI specification will use it as well.
longjmp_unwind; or
1.4 Scope of This ABI
1.4.1 Runtime Libraries
libcxa.so on Itanium systems,
or in auxiliary DSOs automatically loaded by it.
It shall place implicit compiler support
in a library separate from the standard support library,
with any external names chosen to avoid conflicts between vendors
(e.g. by including a vendor identifier as part of the names).
This allows a program to function properly if linked with the
target's standard support library and the implicit compiler support
libraries from any implementations used to build components.
1.4.2 Export Templates
1.5 Base Documents
Chapter 2: Data Layout
2.1 General
2.2 POD Data Types
_Bool,
then bool follows those rules. Otherwise, it has size
and alignment 1.T & and T && are treated
exactly like the pointer type T *.
2.3 Member Pointers
2.3.1 Data Member Pointers
ptrdiff_t.
ptrdiff_t.
-1.
[dcl.init], "zero initialization" of a data
member pointer object stores a null pointer value into it. Under this
representation, that value has a non-zero bit representation. On most
modern platforms, data member pointers are the only type with this
property.
virtual base relationship, and so a static offset
is always known.
-1, the member
pointer will subsequently be treated as a null pointer. This is
considered an irreparable defect in this ABI.
Recommendation for new platforms: consider using
a different representation for data member pointers, such as left-shifting
the offset by one and using a non-zero low bit to indicate a non-null
value.
struct alignas(2) B1 {};
struct B2 : B1 {};
struct B3 : B1 {};
struct D : B2, B3 {
char a, b;
};
// The offset in D of the B3 base subobject is 2, but the
// offset of the data member b is 1.
auto mptr = static_cast<char B3::*>(&D::b);
2.3.2 Member Function Pointers
fnptr_t
is the appropriate function-pointer type for a member function of this type:
struct {
fnptr_t ptr;
ptrdiff_t adj;
};
ptr set to a pointer to the function, using the base
ABI's representation of function pointers.
ptr set to 1 plus the function's
v-table entry offset (in bytes), converted to a function pointer as if by
reinterpret_cast<fnptr_t>(uintfnptr_t(1 + offset)),
where uintfnptr_t is an unsigned integer of the same
size as fnptr_t.
adj stores the offset (in bytes)
which must be added to the this pointer before the call.
ptr set to a null pointer. The value
of adj is unspecified for null member function pointers.
this-adjustment
stored in adj is left-shifted by one, and the low bit
of adj indicates whether ptr is a function
pointer (including null) or the offset of a v-table entry. A virtual
member function pointer sets ptr to the v-table entry
offset as if by
reinterpret_cast<fnptr_t>(uintfnptr_t(offset)).
A null member function pointer sets ptr to a null
function pointer and must ensure that the low bit of adj
is clear; the upper bits of adj remain unspecified.
ptr is equal
to a null function pointer and (only when using the 32-bit ARM
representation) the low bit of adj is clear.
ptr and adj
are equal. Note that the C++ standard does not require member pointers
to the same virtual member function to compare equal; implementations
using this ABI will do so, but only if the member pointers are built
using the same v-table offset, which they may not be in the presence
of multiple inheritance or overrides with covariant return types.
this-adjustment value. In the standard representation,
this simply means adding it to adj; in the 32-bit ARM
representation, the addend must be left-shifted by one. Because the
adjustment does not factor into whether a member function pointer is
null, this addition can be done unconditionally when performing a
conversion.
this address.this address and call
the v-table entry at the stored offset.
2.4 Non-POD Class Types
For a class type C which is not a POD for the purpose
of layout, assume that all component types (i.e. proper base
classes and non-static data member types) have been laid out, defining
size, data size, non-virtual size, alignment, and non-virtual
alignment.
(See the description of these terms in
General above.)
Layout (of type C) is done using the following procedure.
Initialization
Case (2b) above is now considered to be an error in the design. The
use of the first indirect primary base class as the derived class'
primary base does not save any space in the object, and will cause
some duplication of virtual function pointers in the additional copy
of the base classes virtual table.
this pointer will be required for
calls to its virtual functions.
this in some cases, but this was incorrect, as
the virtual function call algorithm requires that
the function be looked up through a pointer to a class that defines
the function, not one that just inherits it. Removing that
requirement would not be a good idea, as there would then no longer be
a way to emit all thunks with the functions they jump to. For
instance, consider this example:
struct A { virtual void f(); };
struct B : virtual public A { int i; };
struct C : virtual public A { int j; };
struct D : public B, public C {};
this adjustment is required and no thunk is generated.
However, inside D objects, A is no longer a primary base of C, so if we
allowed calls to C::f() to use the copy of A's vtable in the C
subobject, we would need to adjust this from C*
to B::A*, which would require a third-party thunk. Since we
require that a call to C::f() first convert to
A*, C-in-D's copy of A's vtable is never referenced, so this
is not necessary.
Allocation of Members Other Than Virtual Bases
T and whose declared width is n bits:
sizeof(T)
and n:
sizeof(T)*8 >= n,
the bit-field is allocated as required by the base C ABI,
subject to the constraint that a bit-field is never placed in the
tail padding of a base class of C.
sizeof(T)*8 < n,
let T' be the largest integral POD type with
sizeof(T')*8 <= n.
The bit-field is allocated starting at the next offset aligned
appropriately for T', with length n bits.
The first sizeof(T)*8 bits are used to hold the
value of the bit-field,
followed by n - sizeof(T)*8 bits of padding.
2.5 Virtual Table Layout
2.5.1 General
ptrdiff_t unless otherwise stated.
2.5.2 Virtual Table Components and Order
this pointer to the virtual base,
and then adds the value contained at the vcall offset
in the virtual base to its this pointer
to get the address of the derived object where the function was overridden.
These values may be positive or negative.
These are first in the virtual table if present,
ordered as specified in categories 3 and 4 of
Section 2.5.3 below.
However, in classes sharing a virtual table with a primary base class,
the vcall and vbase offsets added by the derived class all come before
the vcall and vbase offsets required by the base class,
so that the latter may be laid out as required by the base class
without regard to additions from the derived class(es).
ptrdiff_t.
It is always present.
The offset provides a way to find the top of the object from any base
subobject with a virtual table pointer.
This is necessary for dynamic_cast<void*> in particular.
In a complete object virtual table,
and therefore in all of its primary base virtual tables,
the value of this offset will be zero.
For the secondary virtual tables of other non-virtual bases,
and of many virtual bases,
it will be negative.
Only in some construction virtual tables will some virtual base virtual
tables have
positive offsets, due to a different ordering of the virtual bases in
the full object than in the subobject's standalone layout.
2.5.3 Virtual Table Construction
Category 0: Trivial
Structure:
Category 1: Leaf
Structure:
Category 2: Non-Virtual Bases Only
Structure:
Base,
and a derived class Derived for which we are constructing
this set of virtual tables,
we shall refer to the virtual table for Base as
Base-in-Derived.
The virtual pointer of each base subobject of an object of the
derived class will point to the corresponding base virtual table in this set.
The primary virtual table can be viewed as two virtual tables accessed
from a shared virtual table pointer.
A benefit of replicated virtual function entries (i.e., entries that
appear both in the primary virtual table and in a secondary virtual
table) is that they reduce the number of this pointer adjustments
during virtual calls. Without replication, there would be more cases
where the this pointer would have to be adjusted to access a secondary
virtual table prior to the call. These additional cases would be
exactly those where the function is overridden in the derived class,
implying an additional thunk adjustment back to the original pointer.
Replication saves two 'this' adjustments for each virtual call to an
overridden function originally introduced by a non-primary proper base
class.
Category 3: Virtual Bases Only
Category 4: Complex
For an S-as-T virtual table,
the vbase offset entries from the primary virtual table for T
are replaced with appropriate offsets given the completed hierarchy.
Consider the following inheritance hierarchy:
struct S { virtual void f() };
struct T : virtual public S {};
struct U : virtual public T {};
struct V : public T, virtual public U {};
struct W : public T {};
The above-described virtual table group layout would allow all
non-virtual secondary base class virtual tables in a group to be
accessed from a virtual pointer for one of them,
since the relative offsets would be fixed.
(Since the primary virtual table could end up being embedded,
as the primary base class virtual table,
in another virtual table with additional virtual pointers separating it
from its secondary virtual tables,
this observation is not true of the primary virtual table.)
However, since construction virtual table groups may be organized
differently (see below),
an implementation may not depend on this relationship between
secondary virtual tables.
This tradeoff was made because the space savings resulting from not
requiring construction virtual tables to occur in complete groups
was considered more important than potential sharing of virtual
pointers.
2.6 Virtual tables During Object Construction
2.6.1 General
When a complete object constructor is constructing a virtual base, it
must be wary of using the vbase offsets in the virtual table, since
the possibly shared virtual pointer may point to a construction
virtual table of an unrelated base class.
For instance, in
the virtual pointers for T and V are in the same place. When V's
constructor is about to construct U, that virtual pointer points to
a virtual table for T, and therefore cannot be used to locate U.
struct S {};
struct T: virtual S {};
struct U {};
struct V: virtual T, virtual U {};
2.6.2 VTT Order
This construction is applied recursively.
There are virtual pointers for direct and indirect base classes.
Although primary non-virtual bases do not get secondary virtual
pointers, they do not otherwise affect the ordering.
The virtual VTT addresses come last because they are only passed
to the virtual base class constructors for the complete object.
It is required that the VTT for a complete class D be identical in
structure to the sub-VTT for the same class D as a base of another
class E derived from it,
so that the constructors for D can depend on that structure.
Therefore, the various components of its VTT are present based on the
rules given, even if they point to the
D complete object virtual table or its secondary virtual tables.
That is, secondary VTTs are present for all bases with virtual bases
(including the virtual bases themselves,
which have their secondary VTTs in the virtual VTT section),
and secondary virtual pointers are present for all bases with either
virtual bases or virtual function declarations overridden along a
virtual path.
The only exception is that a primary non-virtual base class does not
require a secondary virtual pointer.
class A1 { int i; };
class A2 { int i; virtual void f(); };
class V1 : public A1, public A2 { int i; };
// A2 is primary base of V1, A1 is non-polymorphic
class B1 { int i; };
class B2 { int i; };
class V2 : public B1, public B2, public virtual V1 { int i; };
// V2 has no primary base, V1 is secondary base
class V3 {virtual void g(); };
class C1 : public virtual V1 { int i; };
// C1 has no primary base, V1 is secondary base
class C2 : public virtual V3, public virtual V2 { int i; };
// C2 has V3 primary (nearly-empty virtual) base, V2 is secondary base
class X1 { int i; };
class C3 : public X1 { int i; };
class D : public C1, public C2, public C3 { int i; };
// C1 is primary base, C2 is secondary base, C3 is non-polymorphic
// 1. Primary virtual pointer:
[0] D has virtual bases (complete object vptr)
// 2. Secondary VTTs:
[1] C1 * (has virtual base)
[2] V1-in-C1 in D (secondary vptr)
[3] C2 * (has virtual bases)
[4] V3-in-C2 in D (primary vptr)
[5] V2-in-C2 in D (secondary vptr)
[6] V1-in-C2 in D (secondary vptr)
// 3. Secondary virtual pointers:
// (no C1-in-D -- primary base)
[7] V1-in-D (V1 is virtual)
[8] C2-in-D (preorder; has virtual bases)
[9] V3-in-D (V3 is virtual)
[10] V2-in-D (V2 is virtual)
// (For complete object D VTT, these all can point to the
// secondary vtables in the D vtable, the V3-in-D entry
// will be the same as the C2-in-D entry, as that is the active
// V3 virtual base in the complete object D. In the sub-VTT for
// D in a class derived from D, some might be construction
// virtual tables.)
// 4. Virtual VTTs:
// (V1 has no virtual bases).
[11] V2 * (V2 has virtual bases)
[12] V1-in-V2 in D * (secondary vptr, V1 is virtual)
(A2 is primary base of V1)
// (V3 has no virtual bases)
2.6.3 Construction Virtual Table Layout
2.6.4 Construction Virtual Table entries
2.7 Array Operator
new Cookies new is used to create a new array,
a cookie is usually stored to remember the allocated length
(number of array elements)
so that it can be deallocated correctly.
new operator being used
is ::operator new[](size_t, void*).
sizeof(size_t).
align be the maximum alignment of
size_t and an element of the array to be allocated.
padding be the maximum of
sizeof(size_t) and align bytes.
padding bytes.
align bytes.
align bytes
from the space allocated for the array.
sizeof(size_t) bytes
immediately preceding the array data.
sizeof(size_t)
is smaller than the array element alignment,
and if present will precede the cookie.
new(ARGS) T[n]:
if T has a trivial destructor (C++ standard, 12.4/3)
padding = 0
else if we're using ::operator new[](size_t, void*)
padding = 0
else
padding = max(sizeof(size_t), alignof(T))
p = operator new[](n * sizeof(T) + padding, ARGS)
p1 = (T*) ( (char *)p + padding )
if padding > 0
*( (size_t *)p1 - 1) = n
for i = [0, n)
create a T, using the default constructor, at p1[i]
return p1
2.8 Initialization Guard Variables
2.9 Run-Time Type Information (RTTI)
2.9.1 General
(c) only requires type information about dynamic class types,
but (a) and (b) may apply to other types as well;
for example, when a pointer to an int is thrown,
it can be caught by a handler that catches "int const*".
Note that the full structure described by an RTTI descriptor may
include incomplete types not required by the Standard to be completed,
although not in contexts where it would cause ambiguity.
Therefore, any cross-references within the RTTI to types not known to
be complete must be weak symbol references.
2.9.2 Place of Emission
abi::__fundamental_type_info (or a type derived therefrom),
whereas the objects corresponding to X* and X const* shall have type
abi::__pointer_type_info (or a type derived therefrom).
(Note that various other type_info objects for class types may reside
in the run-time support library by virtue of the preceding rules,
e.g. that of std::bad_alloc.)
2.9.3 The
typeid Operator
namespace std {
class type_info {
public:
virtual ~type_info();
bool operator==(const type_info &) const;
bool operator!=(const type_info &) const;
bool before(const type_info &) const;
const char* name() const;
private:
type_info (const type_info& rhs);
type_info& operator= (const type_info& rhs);
};
}
name() member function returns the address of an
NTBS, unique to the type, containing
the mangled name of the type.
The mangled name of the NTBS is also
defined by the ABI to allow consistent reference to it, and
the Vague Linkage section specifies how to
produce a unique copy.
operator==, operator!=, and before()
members are easily implemented in terms of
an address comparison of the name NTBS.
2.9.4 RTTI Layout
std::type_info class given below,
and do not imply anything about the member functions of these classes.
Virtual member functions of these classes may only be used within the
target systems' respective runtime libraries.
The data members must be laid out exactly as specified.
std::type_info.
This entry is located at the word preceding the location
pointed to by the virtual pointer (i.e., entry "-1").
The entry is allocated in all virtual tables;
for classes having virtual bases but no virtual functions,
the entry is zero.
std::type_info class in addition to the virtual table
pointer implied by its virtual destructor:
class type_info {
... // See section 2.9.3
private:
const char *__type_name;
};
__type_name is a pointer to a NTBS
representing the mangled name of the type.
abi::__fundamental_type_info
abi::__array_type_info
abi::__function_type_info
abi::__enum_type_info
abi::__class_type_info
abi::__si_class_type_info
abi::__vmi_class_type_info
abi::__pbase_type_info
abi::__pointer_type_info
abi::__pointer_to_member_type_info
abi::__fundamental_type_info adds no data members
to std::type_info;
abi::__array_type_info and
abi::__function_type_info do not add data
members to std::type_info
(these types are only produced by the typeid operator;
they decay in other contexts).
abi::__enum_type_info does not add data members either.
abi::__class_type_info is used for class types having no bases,
and is also a base type for the other two class type representations.
class __class_type_info : public std::type_info {}
abi::__class_type_info objects can always be compared,
for equality (i.e. of the types represented) or ordering,
by comparison of their name NTBS addresses.
In addition, complete class RTTI objects
may also be compared for equality
by comparison of their type_info addresses.
abi::__si_class_type_info is used.
It adds to abi::__class_type_info
a single member pointing to the type_info structure for the base type,
declared "__class_type_info const *__base_type".
class __si_class_type_info : public __class_type_info {
public:
const __class_type_info *__base_type;
};
__si_class_type_info constraints,
abi::__vmi_class_type_info is used.
It is derived from abi::__class_type_info:
class __vmi_class_type_info : public __class_type_info {
public:
unsigned int __flags;
unsigned int __base_count;
__base_class_type_info __base_info[1];
enum __flags_masks {
__non_diamond_repeat_mask = 0x1,
__diamond_shaped_mask = 0x2
};
};
__flags is a word with flags describing details
about the class structure,
which may be referenced by using the
__flags_masks enumeration.
These flags refer to both direct and indirect bases.
The type of the __flags field is defined by each psABI,
but must be at least 16 bits.
For the 64-bit Itanium ABI, it will be unsigned int (32 bits).
__base_count is a word with the number of
direct proper base class descriptions that follow.
The type of the __base_count field is defined by each psABI.
For the 64-bit Itanium ABI, it will be unsigned int (32 bits).
__base_info[] is an array of base class descriptions --
one for every direct proper base.
Each description is of the type:
struct abi::__base_class_type_info {
public:
const __class_type_info *__base_type;
long __offset_flags;
enum __offset_flags_masks {
__virtual_mask = 0x1,
__public_mask = 0x2,
__offset_shift = 8
};
};
__base_type
member points to the RTTI for the base type.
__offset_flags are a
signed offset. For a non-virtual base, this is the offset in
the object of the base subobject. For a virtual base, this is
the offset in the virtual table of the virtual base offset for
the virtual base referenced (negative).
__offset_flags contains flags,
as given by the masks from the enumeration
__offset_flags_masks:
abi::__pbase_type_info is a base for both pointer types and
pointer-to-member types.
It adds two data members:
class __pbase_type_info : public std::type_info {
public:
unsigned int __flags;
const std::type_info *__pointee;
enum __masks {
__const_mask = 0x1,
__volatile_mask = 0x2,
__restrict_mask = 0x4,
__incomplete_mask = 0x8,
__incomplete_class_mask = 0x10,
__transaction_safe_mask = 0x20
__noexcept_mask = 0x40
};
};
__flags is a flag word describing the
cv-qualification and other attributes of the type pointed to
(e.g., "int volatile*" should have the
"volatile" bit set in that word).
For pointer to function and pointer-to-member-function types,
__flags is also used to indicate a "qualification" of sorts
for the pointed-to (member) function type. That is the case for
__transaction_safe_mask and __noexcept_mask
where __pointee is a pointer to the "unqualified" version of
the function type (e.g., one without the exception specification in the
case of __noexcept_mask).
__pointee is a pointer to the
std::type_info derivation for the unqualified type
being pointed to.
__flags
bits should not be folded
into the pointer to allow future definition of additional flags.
It contains the following bits,
and may be referenced using the flags defined in the
__masks enum:
__pointee type has const qualifier
__pointee type has volatile qualifier
__pointee type has restrict qualifier
__pointee type is incomplete
__pointee
is incomplete (in pointer to member)
__pointee type is function type without the
transaction-safe indication
__pointee type is function type without the
exception specification
abi::__pbase_type_info is for a direct
or indirect pointer to an incomplete class type,
the incomplete target type flag is set.
When it is for a direct or indirect pointer to a member of
an incomplete class type,
the incomplete class type flag is set.
In addition, it and all of the intermediate
abi::__pointer_type_info structs in the chain
down to the abi::__class_type_info for the
incomplete class type must be prevented from resolving to the
corresponding type_info structs for the complete class type,
possibly by making them local static objects.
Finally, a dummy class RTTI is generated for the incomplete type
that will not resolve to the final complete class RTTI
(because the latter need not exist),
possibly by making it a local static object.
abi::__pbase_type_info objects can always be compared
for equality (i.e. of the types represented) or ordering
by comparison of their name NTBS addresses.
In addition,
unless either or both have either of the incomplete flags set,
equality can be tested by comparing the type_info addresses.
abi::__pointer_type_info is derived from
abi::__pbase_type_info with no additional data members.
abi::__pointer_to_member_type_info type adds one field
to abi::__pbase_type_info:
class __pointer_to_member_type_info : public __pbase_type_info {
public:
const abi::__class_type_info *__context;
};
__context is a pointer to an
abi::__class_type_info corresponding to the class type
containing the member pointed to (e.g., the "A" in "int A::*")
Note that this ABI requires elsewhere that a virtual table be emitted for a
dynamic type in the object where the first non-inline virtual function
member is defined, if any, or everywhere referenced if none.
Therefore, an implementation should include at least one
non-inline virtual function member and define it in the library,
to avoid having user code inadvertently preempt the virtual table.
Since the Standard requires a virtual destructor,
and it will rarely be called,
it is a good candidate for this role.
2.9.5
std::type_info::name() 2.9.6 The
dynamic_cast Operator
2.9.7 The
dynamic_cast Algorithm
extern "C"
void* __dynamic_cast ( const void *sub,
const abi::__class_type_info *src,
const abi::__class_type_info *dst,
std::ptrdiff_t src2dst_offset);
/* sub: source address to be adjusted; nonnull, and since the
* source object is polymorphic, *(void**)sub is a virtual
pointer.
* src: static type of the source object.
* dst: destination type (the "T" in "dynamic_cast<T>(v)").
* src2dst_offset: a static hint about the location of the
* source subobject with respect to the complete object;
* special negative values are:
* -1: no hint
* -2: src is not a public base of dst
* -3: src is a multiple public base type but never a
* virtual base type
* otherwise, the src type is a unique public nonvirtual
* base type of dst at offset src2dst_offset from the
* origin of dst.
*/
Rationale:
2.9.8 The Exception Handler Matching Algorithm
Chapter 3: Code Emission and APIs
3.1.1 Function Definitions
3.1.2 Parameters
3.1.2.1
this Parametersthis parameter of pointer type. It is
passed as if it were the first parameter in the function prototype,
except as modified for non-trivial
return values.
3.1.2.2
VTT ParametersVTT
parameter of pointer type. It is passed as if it were the second
parameter in the function prototype, immediately following the
this parameter, except as modified for
non-trivial return values.
3.1.2.3 Non-Trivial Parameters
va_arg in
the callee retrieves the address and treats it as a reference to the
temporary.
3.1.2.4 Parameters of Special Class Type
std::decimal::decimal32,
std::decimal::decimal64, or
std::decimal::decimal128 as defined in TR 24733
is passed the same as the corresponding native decimal
floating-point scalar type.
3.1.2.5 Reference Parameters
3.1.2.6 Empty Parameters
3.1.3 Return Values
3.1.3.1 Non-trivial Return Values
this and VTT parameters.
3.1.3.2 Return Values of Special Class Type
std::decimal::decimal32,
std::decimal::decimal64, or
std::decimal::decimal128 as defined in TR 24733 is
returned the same as the corresponding native decimal floating-point
scalar type.
3.1.3.3 Reference Return Values
3.1.3.4 Empty Return Values
struct { char c; };
3.1.3.5 Constructor Return Values
void results.
this. This may permit more efficient
code generation in the caller.
3.1.3.6 Destructor Return Values
void results.
this. This may permit more efficient
code generation in the caller. This modified rule does not apply to
deleting destructors. It also does not apply when making a virtual call
to a complete-object destructor, so that
this-adjustment thunks
do not need to adjust the return value after the call.
3.2.1 General
3.2.2 Virtual Table Components
3.2.3 Callee
this pointer
points to an A*,
and will convert it to a C*
(which merely requires adding a constant offset)
before transferring control to the non-adjusting entry point for C::f.
this pointer
points to the unique virtual V subobject of C.
(Note that there may in general be multiple V subobjects of C,
but that only one of them will be virtual.)
This entry point must load the vcall offset corresponding to f located
in the virtual table for V obtained via its this pointer,
extract the vcall offset corresponding to f located in that virtual table,
and add this offset to the this pointer.
(Note that, as specified in the data layout document,
when V is used as a virtual base,
its virtual table contains vcall offsets for every virtual function
declared in V or any of its bases.)
Then,
this entry point must transfer control to the non-adjusting entry point.
this pointer
points to an M*,
and will convert it to a V* (a fixed offset),
where V is the nearest virtual base to M
along the inheritance path from C to M.
Then, it will convert the V* to a C* by using the vcall offset
stored in the V's virtual table.
3.2.4 Caller
this pointer.
this
pointer will be required.
3.2.5 Implementation
3.2.6 Pure Virtual Function API
extern "C" void __cxa_pure_virtual ();
3.2.7 Deleted Virtual Function API
extern "C" void __cxa_deleted_virtual ();
3.3 Construction and Destruction APIs
3.3.1 Subobject Construction and Destruction
this pointer is
NULL. All other destructors, including deleting
destructors for classes with a virtual destructor, may assume that the
this pointer is not NULL.
// Sub-VTT for D (embedded in VTT for its derived class X):
static vtable *__VTT__1D [1+n+m] =
{ D primary vtable,
// The sub-VTT for B-in-D in X may have further structure:
B-in-D sub-VTT (n elements),
// The secondary virtual pointers for D's bases have elements
// corresponding to those in the B-in-D sub-VTT,
// and possibly others for virtual bases of D:
D secondary virtual pointer for B and bases (m elements) };
D ( D *this, vtable **ctorvtbls )
{
// (The following will be unwound, not a real loop):
for ( each base A of D ) {
// A "boring" base is one that does not need a ctorvtbl:
if ( ! boring(A) ) {
// Call subobject constructors with sub-VTT index
// if the base needs it -- only B in our example:
A ( (A*)this, ctorvtbls + sub-VTT-index(A) );
} else {
// Otherwise, just invoke the complete-object constructor:
A ( (A*)this );
}
}
// Initialize virtual pointer with primary ctorvtbls address
// (first element):
this->vptr = ctorvtbls+0; // primary virtual pointer
// (The following will be unwound, not a real loop):
for ( each subobject A of D ) {
// Initialize virtual pointers of subobjects with ctorvtbls
// addresses for the bases
if ( ! boring(A) ) {
((A*)this)->vptr = ctorvtbls + 1+n + secondary-vptr-index(A);
// where n is the number of elements in the sub-VTTs
} else {
// Otherwise, just use the complete-object vtable:
((A *)this)->vptr = &(A-in-D vtable);
}
}
// Code for D constructor.
...
}
3.3.2 Construction by Inherited Constructor
using
declaration. Formally, such initialization is not performed by a derived class
constructor, and instead the initialization expression itself directly
initializes each base class (recursively, if the constructor is inherited from
an indirect base class) and each non-static data member. To reduce code
duplication, this ABI permits such initialization to be factored out into an
inheriting constructor function.
struct X { X(); };
struct A { A(int); };
struct B : A { using A::A; };
struct C : virtual B { using B::B; X x; };
struct D : C { using C::C; };
C c(0);
D d(0);
// The initializations of c and d behave as if they call C::Ccomplete A(int)(0) and D::Dcomplete A(int)(0):
D::Dcomplete A(int)(int n) : Bbase A(int)(n), Cbase A(int)() {} // _ZN1DCI11AEi
C::Ccomplete A(int)(int n) : Bbase A(int)(n), x() {} // _ZN1CCI11AEi
C::Cbase A(int)() : /*no init for vbase B*/ x() {} // _ZN1CCI21AEi
B::Bbase A(int)(int n) : A(n) {} // _ZN1BCI21AEi
3.3.3 One-time Construction API
extern "C" int __cxa_guard_acquire ( __int64_t *guard_object );
__cxa_guard_release or
__cxa_guard_abort must be called with the same argument.
The first byte of the guard_object is not modified by this
function.
guard_object with a mutex. If this function
returns 1, the mutex will have been acquired by the calling thread.
extern "C" void __cxa_guard_release ( __int64_t *guard_object );
__cxa_guard_acquire after setting the first byte of the
guard object.
extern "C" void __cxa_guard_abort ( __int64_t *guard_object );
__cxa_guard_acquire.
if (obj_guard.first_byte == 0) {
if ( __cxa_guard_acquire (&obj_guard) ) {
try {
... initialize the object ...;
} catch (...) {
__cxa_guard_abort (&obj_guard);
throw;
}
... queue object destructor with __cxa_atexit() ...;
__cxa_guard_release (&obj_guard);
}
}
ld1.acq operation to
load the flag.
3.3.4 Array Construction and Destruction API
extern "C" void * __cxa_vec_new (
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
size_t padding_size,
void (*constructor) ( void *this ),
void (*destructor) ( void *this ) );
__cxa_vec_new2(element_count, element_size, padding_size, constructor,
destructor, &::operator new[], &::operator delete[])
extern "C" void * __cxa_vec_new2 (
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
size_t padding_size,
void (*constructor) ( void *this ),
void (*destructor) ( void *this ),
void* (*alloc) ( size_t size ),
void (*dealloc) ( void *obj ) );
alloc) for the array preceded by the specified
padding, initialize the cookie if the padding is non-zero, and call
the given constructor on each element. Return the address of the
array proper, after the padding.alloc throws an exception, rethrow the exception.
If alloc returns NULL, return
NULL. If the constructor throws an
exception, call destructor for any already constructed
elements, and rethrow the exception. If the destructor
throws an exception, call std::terminate.NULL, in which case it must
not be called. If the padding_size is zero, the
destructor may be NULL; in that case it must
not be called.alloc nor dealloc may be
NULL.std::bad_array_new_length is thrown.
extern "C" void * __cxa_vec_new3 (
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
size_t padding_size,
void (*constructor) ( void *this ),
void (*destructor) ( void *this ),
void* (*alloc) ( size_t size ),
void (*dealloc) ( void *obj, size_t size ) );
__cxa_vec_new2 except that the deallocation
function takes both the object address and its size.
extern "C" void __cxa_throw_bad_array_new_length (void);
std::bad_array_new_length.
May be invoked by the compiler when the number of array elements
expression of a new[] operation violates the requirements
of the C++ standard.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_ctor (
void *array_address,
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
void (*constructor) ( void *this ),
void (*destructor) ( void *this ) );
terminate().
The constructor and/or destructor pointers may be NULL.
If either is NULL, no action is taken when it would have been called.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_dtor (
void *array_address,
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
void (*destructor) ( void *this ) );
terminate().
The destructor pointer may be NULL,
in which case this routine does nothing.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_cleanup (
void *array_address,
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
void (*destructor) ( void *this ) );
terminate().
The destructor pointer may be NULL,
in which case this routine does nothing.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_delete (
void *array_address,
size_t element_size,
size_t padding_size,
void (*destructor) ( void *this ) );
array_address is NULL, return
immediately. Otherwise, given the (data) address of an array, the
non-negative size of prefix padding for the cookie, and the size of
its elements, call the given destructor on each element, using the
cookie to determine the number of elements, and then delete the space
by calling ::operator delete[](void *).
If the destructor throws an exception, rethrow after (a) destroying
the remaining elements, and (b) deallocating the storage. If the
destructor throws a second exception, call terminate().
If padding_size is 0, the destructor pointer must be NULL. If the
destructor pointer is NULL, no destructor call is to be made.
The intent of this function is to permit an implementation to call
this function when confronted with an expression of the form
delete[] p in the source code, provided that the default
deallocation function can be used. Therefore, the semantics
of this function are consistent with those required by the standard.
The requirement that the deallocation function be called even if the
destructor throws an exception derives from the resolution to DR 353
to the C++ standard, which was adopted in April, 2003.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_delete2 (
void *array_address,
size_t element_size,
size_t padding_size,
void (*destructor) ( void *this ),
void (*dealloc) ( void *obj ) );
__cxa_vec_delete,
except that the given function is used for deallocation
instead of the default delete function.
If dealloc throws an exception,
the result is undefined.
The dealloc pointer may not be NULL.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_delete3 (
void *array_address,
size_t element_size,
size_t padding_size,
void (*destructor) ( void *this ),
void (*dealloc) ( void *obj, size_t size ) );
__cxa_vec_delete,
except that the given function is used for deallocation
instead of the default delete function.
The deallocation function takes both the object address and its size.
If dealloc throws an exception,
the result is undefined.
The dealloc pointer may not be NULL.
extern "C" void __cxa_vec_cctor (
void *dest_array,
void *src_array,
size_t element_count,
size_t element_size,
void (*constructor) (void *destination, void *source),
void (*destructor) (void *));
terminate().
The constructor and or destructor pointers may be NULL.
If either is NULL, no action is taken when it would have been called.
3.3.5 Controlling Object Construction Order
3.3.5.1 Motivation
3.3.5.2 Source Code API
#pragma priority ( <priority> )
DT_INIT_ARRAY entries.
For consistency with the C++ Standard requirements on initialization order,
behavior is undefined unless the priorities appearing in a single file,
including any default zero priorities,
are in non-decreasing numeric (non-increasing priority) order.
3.3.5.3 Object File Representation
SHT_IA_64_PRIORITY_INIT,
with section ID 0x79000000 on Itanium,
and section name .priority_init,
and attributes allowing writing but not execution.
The elements are structs:
typedef struct {
ElfXX_Word pi_pri;
ElfXX_Addr pi_addr;
} ElfXX_Priority_Init;
pi_addr is a function pointer,
as defined by the base ABI
(a pointer to a function descriptor on Itanium).
The function takes a single unsigned int priority parameter,
which performs some initialization at priority pi_pri.
The priority value is obtained from the signed int in the source pragma
by subtracting MIN_INT, so the default priority is -MIN_INT.
The section header field sh_entsize is 8 for ELF-32,
or 16 for ELF-64.
An implementation may initialize as many (or as few) objects of the
same priority as it chooses in a single such initialization function,
as long as the sequence of such initialization entries for a given file
preserves the source code order of objects to be initialized.
3.3.5.4 Runtime Library Support
void __cxa_priority_init ( ElfXX_Priority_Init *pi, int cnt );
cnt-element
(sub-)vector of the priority initialization entries,
and must call each of them in order.
It will be called with the GP of the initialization entries.
3.3.5.5 Linker Processing
SHT_IA_64_PRIORITY_INIT sections in link order,
which, given equal section IDs, section names, and section attributes
as specified above, is the default behavior specified by the generic
ABI for unknown section types.
Given minimum static linker processing,
an implementation supporting priority initialization would need to
include bracketing files in the link command that
(1) label the ends of the SHT_IA_64_PRIORITY_INIT section,
and (2) provide initial and final DT_INIT_ARRAY entries.
The initial DT_INIT_ARRAY entry would need to sort the
SHT_IA_64_PRIORITY_INIT section and call
__cxa_priority_init to run the constructors with negative
priority (in the source).
The final DT_INIT_ARRAY entry would need to call
__cxa_priority_init to run the constructors with
non-negative priority.
Other DT_INIT_ARRAY entries would thus run at the proper
point in the priority sequence.
SHT_IA_64_PRIORITY_INIT section at link time and fabricate
the code to call __cxa_priority_init at the beginning and
end.
At the extreme, it could even include other DT_INIT_ARRAY
entries in the SHT_IA_64_PRIORITY_INIT sequence at the
appropriate places and emit exactly one call to
__cxa_priority_init,
with no other entries in the DT_INIT_ARRAY section.
3.3.6 DSO Object Destruction API
3.3.6.1 Motivation
atexit routine to register the destructors.
This is problematic because the 1999 C Standard only requires that the
implementation support 32 registered functions,
although most implementations support many more.
More important,
it does not deal at all with the ability in most implementations to
remove DSOs from a running program image by calling
dlclose prior to program termination.
atexit-registered functions
in the correct sequence relative to constructor-registered destructors,
and reasonable treatment during early DSO unload (e.g. dlclose).
3.3.6.2 Runtime Data Structure
3.3.6.3 Runtime API
extern "C" int __cxa_atexit ( void (*f)(void *), void *p, void *d );
__cxa_atexit(f,p,d),
is intended to cause the call f(p) when DSO d is unloaded,
before all such termination calls registered before this one.
It returns zero if registration is successful, nonzero on failure.
atexit calls:
atexit,
they should be registered with NULL parameters and DSO handles, i.e.
__cxa_atexit ( f, NULL, NULL );
atexit
implementation so that C-only DSOs will nevertheless interact with C++
programs in a C++-standard-conforming manner.
No user interface to __cxa_atexit is supported,
so the user is not able to register an atexit function
with a parameter or a home DSO.
__cxa_atexit,
the linker should define a hidden symbol __dso_handle,
with a value which is an address in one of the object's segments.
(It does not matter what address,
as long as they are different in different DSOs.)
It should also include a call to the following function in the FINI
list (to be executed first):
extern "C" void __cxa_finalize ( void *d );
&__dso_handle.
__cxa_atexit, but they can be safely included in all objects.
__cxa_finalize(d) is called,
it should walk the termination function list,
calling each in turn if d matches
__dso_handle for the termination function entry.
If d == NULL, it should call all of them.
Multiple calls to __cxa_finalize shall not result in
calling termination function entries multiple times;
the implementation may either remove entries or mark them finished.
exit,
it must call any remaining __cxa_atexit-registered functions,
either by calling __cxa_finalize(NULL),
or by walking the registration list itself.
__cxa_finalize()
in the opposite of the order in which they were enqueued by
__cxa_atexit.
__cxa_atexit and __cxa_finalize
must both manipulate the same termination function list,
they must be defined in the implementation's runtime library,
rather than in the individual linked objects.
3.4 Demangler API
namespace abi {
extern "C" char* __cxa_demangle (const char* mangled_name,
char* buf,
size_t* n,
int* status);
}
mangled-name
is a pointer to a null-terminated array of characters.
It may be either an external name, i.e. with a "_Z" prefix,
or an internal NTBS mangling, e.g. of a type for type_info.
buf may be null.
If it is non-null, then n must also be nonnull,
and buf is a pointer to an array, of at least *n characters,
that was allocated using malloc.
status points to an int that is used as an error indicator.
It is permitted to be null,
in which case the user just doesn't get any detailed error information.
__cxa_demangle.
buf is a null pointer,
__cxa_demangle allocates a new buffer with
malloc. It stores the size of the buffer in
*n, if n is not NULL.
buf is not a null pointer, it must have been
allocated with malloc. If buf is not
big enough to store the resulting demangled name,
__cxa_demangle must either a) call free
to deallocate buf and then allocate a new buffer
with malloc, or b) call realloc to
increase the size of the buffer. In either case, the new buffer
size will be stored in *n.
Chapter 4: Exception Handling
Chapter 5: Linkage and Object Files
5.1 External Names (a.k.a. Mangling)
5.1.1 General
<>.
<function name> is the same as
<name>,
but it means this derivation rule should be used only for
the names of functions.
# is a comment,
to be ignored until the end of the line. Comments are often
used to describe in what case an alternative should be used.
[] are optional.
() are groups for the purposes of
* and +.
* allows the preceding
item to repeat 0 or more times.
+ allows the preceding
item to repeat 1 or more times.
Ret? for an unknown function return type
(i.e. that is not given by the mangling),
or Type? for an unknown data type.
$ or
. are reserved for private implementation
use. Names produced using such extensions are inherently non-portable
and should be given internal linkage where possible.
5.1.2 General Structure
Thus, a name is mangled by prefixing "_Z" to an encoding of its name,
and in the case of functions its type (to support overloading).
At this top level,
function types do not have the special delimiter characters required
when nested (see below). Furthermore, in the case of instances (or
explicit specializations) of function templates and member function
templates (but not ordinary member functions of class templates), the
<mangled-name> ::= _Z <encoding>
::= _Z <encoding> . <vendor-specific suffix>
<encoding> ::= <function name> <bare-function-type>
::= <data name>
::= <special-name>
<bare-function-type> encoding is that of the type
expressed in the template (i.e., one likely involving template
parameters).
The type is omitted for variables and static data members.
<mangled-name>
containing a period represents a vendor-specific version or portion
of the entity named by the <encoding>
prior to the first period. There is no restriction on the characters
that may be used in the suffix following the period.
// a.cpp:
template <int> void foo() {}
template <> void foo<0>();
// b.cpp:
template <long> void foo() {}
template <> void foo<0>();
Dependent constructs in templates
Anonymous entities
are considered to have the name
union { int i; int j; };
union { union { int : 7 }; union { int i; }; };
union { union { int j; } i; };
i for the purposes of
mangling.
Names
std, are mangled as unscoped names. Entities declared
within a function, including members of local classes, are mangled
with <local-name>. Entities
declared in a namespace or class scope are mangled with
<nested-name>. When the actual
entity is not known statically, as can occur in a dependent function
template signature, the name is mangled with
<unresolved-name>.
I
which starts a <template-args>
production.
<name> ::= <nested-name>
::= <unscoped-name>
::= <unscoped-template-name> <template-args>
::= <local-name> # See Scope Encoding below
<unscoped-name> ::= <unqualified-name>
::= St <unqualified-name> # ::std::
<unscoped-template-name> ::= <unscoped-name>
::= <substitution>
<nested-name> ::= N [<CV-qualifiers>] [<ref-qualifier>] <prefix> <unqualified-name> E
::= N [<CV-qualifiers>] [<ref-qualifier>] <template-prefix> <template-args> E
<prefix> ::= <unqualified-name> # global class or namespace
::= <prefix> <unqualified-name> # nested class or namespace
::= <template-prefix> <template-args> # class template specialization
::= <closure-prefix> # initializer of a variable or data member
::= <template-param> # template type parameter
::= <decltype> # decltype qualifier
::= <substitution>
<template-prefix> ::= <template unqualified-name> # global template
::= <prefix> <template unqualified-name> # nested template
::= <template-param> # template template parameter
::= <substitution>
<unqualified-name> ::= <operator-name> [<abi-tags>]
::= <ctor-dtor-name>
::= <source-name>
::= <unnamed-type-name>
::= DC <source-name>+ E # structured binding declaration
<source-name> ::= <positive length number> <identifier>
<identifier> ::= <unqualified source code identifier>
_A-Za-z0-9.
ABI tags
abi_tag attribute can be applied to a variable,
function, inline namespace, class, or enumeration. The
<unqualified-name> for a tagged
variable, function, or type includes a representation of the tags on that
entity, in alphabetical order:
For example:
<abi-tags> ::= <abi-tag> [<abi-tags>]
<abi-tag> ::= B <source-name>
struct [[gnu::abi_tag ("foo","bar")]] A { }; // mangles as 1AB3barB3foo
If a name that would use a built-in
<substitution> has ABI tags, the tags
are appended to the substitution; the result is a substitutable component.
namespace std
{
template <class T> struct char_traits { /* ... */ };
template <class T> struct allocator { /* ... */ };
template <class T, class R = char_traits<T>, class A = allocator<T>>
struct [[gnu::abi_tag ("X")]] basic_string { /* ... */ };
using string = basic_string<char>;
}
void f(std::string, std::string) { } // mangles as _Z1fSsB1XS_
If part of a declaration's type is not represented in the mangling, i.e. the
type of a variable or a return type that is not represented in the mangling of
a function, any ABI tags on that type (or components of a compound type) that
are not also present in a mangled part of the type are applied to the name of
the declaration. Note that there is no similar tag propagation from members or
bases to a class type, as that would be impossible for incomplete types.
struct [[gnu::abi_tag ("foo")]] A
{
template <class T> static T f();
template <class T> static A g();
};
template <class T> struct B
{
static decltype(A::f<T>()) fa(decltype(A::f<T>()));
static decltype(A::f<T>()) fv();
static decltype(A::g<T>()) ga(decltype(A::g<T>()));
static decltype(A::g<T>()) gv();
};
int main()
{
// decltype(A::f<T>()) resolves to int
B<int>::fa(0); // _ZN1BIiE2faEi
B<int>::fv(); // _ZN1BIiE2fvEv
// decltype(A::g<T>()) resolves to A, which has a tag
B<int>::ga(A()); // _ZN1BIiE2gaE1AB3foo
B<int>::gv(); // _ZN1BIiE2gvB3fooEv
}
inline namespace [[gnu::abi_tag]] Foo {
struct A {};
A f() { } // mangles as _ZN3Foo1fEv
}
template <class T> struct B { };
typedef void (*fp)(B<A>);
fp p; // mangles as _Z1pB3Foo
A g(A) { } // mangles as _Z1gN3Foo1AE
Numbers
<number> ::= [n] <non-negative decimal integer>
Sequence numbers
<seq-id> ::= <0-9A-Z>+
S [<seq-id>] _. The first substitutable entity is encoded as S_, i.e. with no number. The second is encoded as S0_, the third as S1_, the twelfth as SA_, the thirty-eighth as S10_, etc.
5.1.3 Operator Encodings
<operator-name> ::= nw # new
::= na # new[]
::= dl # delete
::= da # delete[]
::= aw # co_await
::= ps # + (unary)
::= ng # - (unary)
::= ad # & (unary)
::= de # * (unary)
::= co # ~
::= pl # +
::= mi # -
::= ml # *
::= dv # /
::= rm # %
::= an # &
::= or # |
::= eo # ^
::= aS # =
::= pL # +=
::= mI # -=
::= mL # *=
::= dV # /=
::= rM # %=
::= aN # &=
::= oR # |=
::= eO # ^=
::= ls # <<
::= rs # >>
::= lS # <<=
::= rS # >>=
::= eq # ==
::= ne # !=
::= lt # <
::= gt # >
::= le # <=
::= ge # >=
::= ss # <=>
::= nt # !
::= aa # &&
::= oo # ||
::= pp # ++ (postfix in <expression> context)
::= mm # -- (postfix in <expression> context)
::= cm # ,
::= pm # ->*
::= pt # ->
::= cl # ()
::= ix # []
::= qu # ?
::= cv <type> # (cast)
::= li <source-name> # operator ""
::= v <digit> <source-name> # vendor extended operator
__imag)
shall encode them as a 'v' prefix followed by
the operand count as a single decimal digit, and
the name in <length,ID> form.
For a user-defined conversion operator the result type (i.e., the type
to which the operator converts) is part of the mangled name of the
function. If the conversion operator is a member template, the result
type will appear before the template parameters. There may be forward
references in the result type to the template parameters.
5.1.4 Other Special Functions and Entities
5.1.4.1 Virtual Tables and RTTI
<special-name> ::= TV <type> # virtual table
::= TT <type> # VTT structure (construction vtable index)
::= TI <type> # typeinfo structure
::= TS <type> # typeinfo name (null-terminated byte string)
5.1.4.2 Virtual Override Thunks
this adjustments,
use a "Th" prefix and encode the required adjustment offset,
probably negative, indicated by a 'n' prefix,
and the encoding of the target function.
Those overriding from a virtual base must encode two offsets
after a "Tv" prefix.
The first is the constant adjustment to the nearest virtual base
(of the full object),
of which the defining object is a non-virtual base.
It is coded like the non-virtual case,
with a 'n' prefix if negative.
The second offset identifies the vcall offset in the nearest virtual base,
which will be used to finish adjusting this to the full object.
After these two offsets comes the encoding of the target function.
The target function encodings of both thunks incorporate the function type;
no additional type is encoded for the thunk itself.
<special-name> ::= T <call-offset> <base encoding>
# base is the nominal target function of thunk
<call-offset> ::= h <nv-offset> _
::= v <v-offset> _
<nv-offset> ::= <offset number>
# non-virtual base override
<v-offset> ::= <offset number> _ <virtual offset number>
# virtual base override, with vcall offset
<special-name> ::= Tc <call-offset> <call-offset> <base encoding>
# base is the nominal target function of thunk
# first call-offset is 'this' adjustment
# second call-offset is result adjustment
5.1.4.3 Constructors and Destructors
<ctor-dtor-name> ::= C1 # complete object constructor
::= C2 # base object constructor
::= C3 # complete object allocating constructor
::= CI1 <base class type> # complete object inheriting constructor
::= CI2 <base class type> # base object inheriting constructor
::= D0 # deleting destructor
::= D1 # complete object destructor
::= D2 # base object destructor
5.1.4.4 Guard Variables
GV.
<special-name> ::= GV <object name> # Guard variable for one-time initialization
# No <type>
5.1.4.5 Lifetime-Extended Temporaries
GR and suffixed
with a sequence number mangled using the usual rules for a seq-id. Temporaries are numbered
with a pre-order, depth-first, left-to-right walk of the complete
initializer.
<special-name> ::= GR <object name> _ # First temporary
<special-name> ::= GR <object name> <seq-id> _ # Subsequent temporaries
struct A { const int (&x)[3]; };
struct B { const A (&x)[2]; };
template <typename T> B &&b = { { { { 1, 2, 3 } }, { { 4, 5, 6 } } } };
B &temp = b<void>;
_ZGR1bIvE_ is the 'B' object that 'temp' would refer to.
_ZGR1bIvE0_ is the array of 'A' object references.
_ZGR1bIvE1_ is the object containing the first array of ints, {1, 2, 3}.
_ZGR1bIvE2_ is the object containing the second array of ints, {4, 5, 6}.
5.1.4.6 Transaction-Safe Function
Entry Points
A function declared transaction-safe or
[[optimize_for_synchronized]] has two entry points: the normal function
mangling, used for calls from a non-transaction context, and another entry
point used for calls during a transaction. The mangled name of the transaction entry point is the normal mangling prefixed with GTt.
<special-name> ::= GTt <encoding>
5.1.5 Type encodings
const and *,
that uniquely determine the type. The mangling of function template
signatures necessitates the ability to encode the compound structure
of dependent types.
<type> ::= <builtin-type>
::= <qualified-type>
::= <function-type>
::= <class-enum-type>
::= <array-type>
::= <pointer-to-member-type>
::= <template-param>
::= <template-template-param> <template-args>
::= <decltype>
::= P <type> # pointer
::= R <type> # l-value reference
::= O <type> # r-value reference (C++11)
::= C <type> # complex pair (C99)
::= G <type> # imaginary (C99)
::= <substitution> # See Compression below
5.1.5.1 Qualified types
<qualified-type> ::= <qualifiers> <type>
<qualifiers> ::= <extended-qualifier>* <CV-qualifiers>
<extended-qualifier> ::= U <source-name> [<template-args>] # vendor extended type qualifier
<CV-qualifiers> ::= [r] [V] [K] # restrict (C99), volatile, const
<ref-qualifier> ::= R # & ref-qualifier
<ref-qualifier> ::= O # && ref-qualifier
_near and
_far for pointers) shall encode them as a 'U' prefix, followed
by the name in <length,ID> form, followed optionally by any arguments
to the qualifier. It is recommended that the encoded name be the
preferred name used in source code; known exceptions are listed below.
int* volatile const restrict _far has mangled type name
U4_farrVKPi. Vendors must therefore specify which of their
extended qualifiers are considered order-insensitive. This need not
necessarily be resolved on the basis of whether their language translators
impose an order in source code. They are encouraged to resolve questionable
cases as being order-insensitive to maximize consistency in mangling.
const volatile foo,
the fully qualified type or foo may be substituted,
but not volatile foo nor const foo.
The restrict qualifier is part of the C99 standard,
but is strictly an extension to C++ at this time.
There is no standard specification of whether the restrict attribute
is part of the type for overloading purposes.
An implementation should include its encoding in the mangled name
if and only if it also treats it as a distinguishing attribute for
overloading purposes.
This ABI does not specify that choice.
Known exceptions to the extended qualifier rules
address_space(N) qualifier is mangled
using the name AS. For historical reasons, if
the argument expression is not
instantiation-dependent,
its value is incorporated directly into the
<source-name> of the
qualifier; otherwise it is encoded as a qualifier argument.
int __attribute__((address_space(3))) * is
encoded as PU3AS3i, but
int __attribute__((address_space(K))) *
(in which K is a reference to the first
template parameter) is encoded as PU2ASIT_Ei.
5.1.5.2 Builtin types
<builtin-type> ::= v # void
::= w # wchar_t
::= b # bool
::= c # char
::= a # signed char
::= h # unsigned char
::= s # short
::= t # unsigned short
::= i # int
::= j # unsigned int
::= l # long
::= m # unsigned long
::= x # long long, __int64
::= y # unsigned long long, __int64
::= n # __int128
::= o # unsigned __int128
::= f # float
::= d # double
::= e # long double, __float80
::= g # __float128
::= z # ellipsis
::= Dd # IEEE 754r decimal floating point (64 bits)
::= De # IEEE 754r decimal floating point (128 bits)
::= Df # IEEE 754r decimal floating point (32 bits)
::= Dh # IEEE 754r half-precision floating point (16 bits)
::= DF <number> _ # ISO/IEC TS 18661 binary floating point type _FloatN (N bits), C++23 std::floatN_t
::= DF <number> x # IEEE extended precision formats, C23 _FloatNx (N bits)
::= DF16b # C++23 std::bfloat16_t
::= DB <number> _ # C23 signed _BitInt(N)
::= DB <instantiation-dependent expression> _ # C23 signed _BitInt(N)
::= DU <number> _ # C23 unsigned _BitInt(N)
::= DU <instantiation-dependent expression> _ # C23 unsigned _BitInt(N)
::= Di # char32_t
::= Ds # char16_t
::= Du # char8_t
::= Da # auto
::= Dc # decltype(auto)
::= Dn # std::nullptr_t (i.e., decltype(nullptr))
::= [DS] DA 5.1.5.3 Function types
The exceptions mentioned in (1) and (2) above,
for which the return type is never included, are
operator int.
() or conventionally as (void),
are encoded with a void parameter specifier (v).
Therefore function types always encode at least one parameter type,
and function manglings can always be distinguished from data manglings
by the presence of the type.
Member functions do not encode the types of
implicit parameters, either this or the VTT parameter.
<nested-name>
as described above. Otherwise, they are encoded as part of the
function type as described below.
noexcept,
noexcept(expression), or throw(type(s))) is part of
the function type, it is mangled according to
<exception-spec> as
described below.
A non-instantiation-dependent, potentially-throwing exception specification is
not mangled.
<function-type> ::= [<CV-qualifiers>] [<exception-spec>] [Dx] F [Y] <bare-function-type> [<ref-qualifier>] E
<bare-function-type> ::= <signature type>+
# types are possible return type, then parameter types
<exception-spec> ::= Do # non-throwing exception-specification (e.g., noexcept, throw())
::= DO <expression> E # computed (instantiation-dependent) noexcept
::= Dw <type>+ E # dynamic exception specification with instantiation-dependent types
void () const, void () is not a
substitution candidate.
Dp <type>, i.e., its type is a pack
expansion:
<type> ::= Dp <type> # pack expansion (C++11)
5.1.5.4 C++11
decltypedecltype type is encoded with
either Dt or DT, depending on how
the decltype type was parsed. (See farther below for
the encoding of expressions.)
If the operand expression of <decltype> ::= Dt <expression> E # decltype of an id-expression or class member access (C++11)
::= DT <expression> E # decltype of an expression (C++11)
decltype is not
instantiation-dependent
then the resulting type is encoded directly. For example:
int x;
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(x);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "i".
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "Dtfp_E".
void g(int);
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(g(p));
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "DTcl1gfp_E".
5.1.5.5 Class, union, and enum types
<class-enum-type> ::= <name> # non-dependent type name, dependent type name, or dependent typename-specifier
::= Ts <name> # dependent elaborated type specifier using 'struct' or 'class'
::= Tu <name> # dependent elaborated type specifier using 'union'
::= Te <name> # dependent elaborated type specifier using 'enum'
std::decimal::decimal32,
std::decimal::decimal64, or std::decimal::decimal128
as defined in TR 24733 uses the same encoding as the corresponding native
decimal-floating point scalar type.
The number is omitted for the first unnamed type in the class; it is
n-2 for the nth unnamed type (in lexical order)
otherwise.
<unnamed-type-name> ::= Ut [ <nonnegative number> ] _
struct S { static struct {} x; };
typedef decltype(S::x) TX; // Type mangled as N1SUt_E
TX S::x; // _ZN1S1xE
void f(TX) {} // _Z1fN1SUt_E
5.1.5.6 Array types
_ separator)
is omitted for incomplete array types (e.g. int[])
and C99 variable-length array types.
<array-type> ::= A [<array bound number>] _ <element type>
::= A <instantiation-dependent array bound expression> _ <element type>
template<int I> void foo (int (&)[I + 1]) { }
// Mangled as _Z3fooILi2EEvRAplT_Li1E_i
template void foo<2> (int (&)[3]);
5.1.5.7 Pointer-to-member types
<pointer-to-member-type> ::= M <class type> <member type>
produces the mangled name " void f (void (A::*)() const &) {}_Z1fM1AKFvvRE".
5.1.5.8 Template parameters
T_,
T0_, T1_, and so on.
<template-param> ::= T_ # first template parameter
::= T <parameter-2 non-negative number> _
<template-template-param> ::= <template-param>
::= <substitution>
template<class T> void f(T) {}
// Mangled as "_Z1fIiEvT_"
template void f(int);
T* is not
substituted despite being known (in this specialization) to be
the same type as int*, and the second incidence
is substituted with the substitution derived from the first
incidence, not that from the incidence of int*.
template<class T> void f(int*, T*, T*) {}
// Mangled as "_Z1fIiEvPiPT_S2_"
template void f(int*, int*, int*);
template<class T> class A {
template<class U> void f(T, U) {}
};
// Mangled as "_ZN1AIiE1fIfEEviT_"
template void A<int>::f(int, float);
5.1.5.9 Function parameter references
template<class T> void f(T p, decltype(p)); // L = 1
template<class T> void g(T p, decltype(p) (*)()); // L = 1
template<class T> void h(T p, auto (*)()->decltype(p)); // L = 1
template<class T> void i(T p, auto (*)(T q)->decltype(q)); // L = 0
template<class T> void j(T p, auto (*)(decltype(p))->T); // L = 2
template<class T> void k(T p, int (*(*)(T p))[sizeof(p)]); // L = 1
Note that top-level cv-qualifiers specified on a parameter type do not
affect the function type directly (i.e.,
<function-param> ::= fp <top-level CV-qualifiers> _ # L == 0, first parameter
::= fp <top-level CV-qualifiers> <parameter-2 non-negative number> _ # L == 0, second and later parameters
::= fL <L-1 non-negative number> p <top-level CV-qualifiers> _ # L > 0, first parameter
::= fL <L-1 non-negative number> p <top-level CV-qualifiers>
<parameter-2 non-negative number> _ # L > 0, second and later parameters
::= fpT # this
int(*)(T) and
int(*)(T const) are the same type), but in expression
contexts (such as decltype arguments) they do matter and must therefore
be encoded in <function-param>, unless the parameter
is used as an rvalue of a known non-class type (in the latter case the
qualifier cannot affect the semantics of the expression). For example:
template<typename T> void f(T const p, decltype(p)*);
// The specialization f<int> has type void(int, int const*)
// and is encoded as _Z1fIiEvT_PDtfL0pK_E
5.1.5.10 Template Arguments
<template-args> ::= I <template-arg>+ E
<template-arg> ::= <type> # type or template
::= X <expression> E # expression
::= <expr-primary> # simple expressions
::= J <template-arg>* E # argument pack
5.1.6 Expressions
decltype,
or template argument) must be mangled in order to properly
distinguish templates that are different under the ODR.
See the section on dependent
mangling. As a result, nearly the entire expression
grammar of C++ is subject to mangling, with only a few
exceptions (like lambdas) that are explicitly disallowed
in function signatures.
<unresolved-name>
must be mangled differently because the parentheses act to suppress
argument-dependent lookup.) Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the
expression is mangled without constant folding or other
simplification.
<operator-name>.
J is the third template parameter,
"B<(J+1)/2>" becomes "1BI Xdv pl T1_ Li1E Li2E E E" (the blanks
are present only to visualize the decomposition).
sizeof or alignof operator
is not instantiation-dependent,
it is encoded as an integer literal reflecting the result of the
operator. If the result of the operator is implicitly converted to
a known integer type, that type is used for the literal; otherwise,
the type of std::size_t or std::ptrdiff_t is used.
For example:
template<class T, int N> struct S1 {};
template<class T, T N> struct S2 {};
template<class T> void f(S1<T, sizeof(long double)>);
// The sizeof(...) is not instantiation-dependent, and converted to int:
// the result is encoded as "Li16E" for 16-byte long double types.
template<class T> void f(S2<T, sizeof(long double)>);
// The sizeof(...) is not instantiation-dependent, and converted to an
// unknown type: the result is encoded as "Lm16E" for 16-byte long double
// types and std::size_t a synonym for "unsigned long".
template<class T> void f(S2<T, sizeof(T*)>);
// The sizeof(...) is instantiation-dependent (even though its value may
// be known if all pointers have the same size): It is encoded as "stPT_".
<expression> ::= <unary operator-name> <expression>
::= <binary operator-name> <expression> <expression>
::= <ternary operator-name> <expression> <expression> <expression>
::= pp_ <expression> # prefix ++
::= mm_ <expression> # prefix --
::= cl <expression>+ E # expression (expr-list), call
::= cv <type> <expression> # type (expression), conversion with one argument
::= cv <type> _ <expression>* E # type (expr-list), conversion with other than one argument
::= tl <type> <braced-expression>* E # type {expr-list}, conversion with braced-init-list argument
::= il <braced-expression>* E # {expr-list}, braced-init-list in any other context
::= [gs] nw <expression>* _ <type> E # new (expr-list) type
::= [gs] nw <expression>* _ <type> <initializer> # new (expr-list) type (init)
::= [gs] na <expression>* _ <type> E # new[] (expr-list) type
::= [gs] na <expression>* _ <type> <initializer> # new[] (expr-list) type (init)
::= [gs] dl <expression> # delete expression
::= [gs] da <expression> # delete[] expression
::= dc <type> <expression> # dynamic_cast<type> (expression)
::= sc <type> <expression> # static_cast<type> (expression)
::= cc <type> <expression> # const_cast<type> (expression)
::= rc <type> <expression> # reinterpret_cast<type> (expression)
::= ti <type> # typeid (type)
::= te <expression> # typeid (expression)
::= st <type> # sizeof (type)
::= sz <expression> # sizeof (expression)
::= at <type> # alignof (type)
::= az <expression> # alignof (expression)
::= nx <expression> # noexcept (expression)
::= <template-param>
::= <function-param>
::= dt <expression> <unresolved-name> # expr.name
::= pt <expression> <unresolved-name> # expr->name
::= ds <expression> <expression> # expr.*expr
::= sZ <template-param> # sizeof...(T), size of a template parameter pack
::= sZ <function-param> # sizeof...(parameter), size of a function parameter pack
::= sP <template-arg>* E # sizeof...(T), size of a captured template parameter pack from an alias template
::= sp <expression> # expression..., pack expansion
::= fl <binary operator-name> <expression> # (... operator expression), unary left fold
::= fr <binary operator-name> <expression> # (expression operator ...), unary right fold
::= fL <binary operator-name> <expression> <expression> # (expression operator ... operator expression), binary left fold
::= fR <binary operator-name> <expression> <expression> # (expression operator ... operator expression), binary right fold
::= tw <expression> # throw expression
::= tr # throw with no operand (rethrow)
::= u <source-name> <template-arg>* E # vendor extended expression
::= <unresolved-name> # f(p), N::f(p), ::f(p),
# freestanding dependent name (e.g., T::x),
# objectless nonstatic member reference
::= <expr-primary>
<unresolved-name> ::= [gs] <base-unresolved-name> # x or (with "gs") ::x
::= sr <unresolved-type> <base-unresolved-name> # T::x / decltype(p)::x
::= srN <unresolved-type> <unresolved-qualifier-level>+ E <base-unresolved-name>
# T::N::x /decltype(p)::N::x
::= [gs] sr <unresolved-qualifier-level>+ E <base-unresolved-name>
# A::x, N::y, A<T>::z; "gs" means leading "::"
<unresolved-type> ::= <template-param> [ <template-args> ] # T:: or T<X,Y>::
::= <decltype> # decltype(p)::
::= <substitution>
<unresolved-qualifier-level> ::= <simple-id>
<simple-id> ::= <source-name> [ <template-args> ]
<base-unresolved-name> ::= <simple-id> # unresolved name
::= on <operator-name> # unresolved operator-function-id
::= on <operator-name> <template-args> # unresolved operator template-id
::= dn <destructor-name> # destructor or pseudo-destructor;
# e.g. ~X or ~X<N-1>
<destructor-name> ::= <unresolved-type> # e.g., ~T or ~decltype(f())
::= <simple-id> # e.g., ~A<2*N>
<expr-primary> ::= L <type> <value number> E # integer literal
::= L <type> <value float> E # floating literal
::= L <string type> E # string literal
::= L <nullptr type> E # nullptr literal (i.e., "LDnE")
::= L <pointer type> 0 E # null pointer template argument
::= L <type> <real-part float> _ <imag-part float> E # complex floating point literal (C 2000)
::= L _Z <encoding> E # external name
<braced-expression> ::= <expression>
::= di <field source-name> <braced-expression> # .name = expr
::= dx <index expression> <braced-expression> # [expr] = expr
::= dX <range begin expression> <range end expression> <braced-expression>
# [expr ... expr] = expr
<initializer> ::= pi <expression>* E # parenthesized initialization
-> operator)
takes precedence over one that is expressed in terms of (unary/binary/ternary) <operator-name>.
gs" prefix on some of the productions indicates that the corresponding
source construct (name, new-expression, or delete-expression) includes a global-scope qualifier
(e.g., ::x).
tl is used for direct-list-initializations, where the type name is directly followed by a braced-init-list; e.g., MyArray{1,2,3} should be mangled tl7MyArrayLi1ELi2ELi3EE. If the braced-init-list is parenthesized, this is not a direct-list-initialization, and it should be mangled with cv and a nested il; for example, MyArray({1,2,3}) should be mangled cv7MyArrayilLi1ELi2ELi3EE.X{.a.b[3] = 1} should be mangled tl1Xdi1adi1bdxLi3ELi1EE.5.1.6.1 Literals
<float> ::= <0-9a-f>+
nullptr is encoded as
"LDnE". In contrast, a template argument which happens to be a null
pointer (an extension made standard in C++11) is mangled as if it were
a literal 0 of the appropriate pointer type; for example,
"LPi0E" or "LDn0E". This inconsistency is an unfortunate accident.
5.1.6.2 References to declared entities
void foo(char); // mangled as _Z3fooc
template<void (&)(char)> struct CB;
// CB<foo> is mangled as "2CBIL_Z3foocEE"
extern "C" bool IsEmpty(char *); // (un)mangled as IsEmpty
template<void (&)(char *)> struct CB;
// CB<IsEmpty> is mangled as "2CBIL_Z7IsEmptyEE"
<encoding> production (via
<expr-primary>) does not apply, and instead the
<unresolved-name> encoding is used. For example:
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p->x);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "Dtptfp_1xE".
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(T::X::y);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "DtsrNT_1XE1yE" (note how <type> is a
// <nested-name> for T::X in this case).
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p->::A::B::x);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "Dtptfp_gssr1A1BE1xE".
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p->x)::Y;
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "NDtptfp_1xE1YE".
<unresolved-name>
is used even if the indicated member is actually known. Similarly,
an <unresolved-qualifier-level> may encode a known
class type.
That production is also used for references to nonstatic members with no
associated expression designating the enclosing object (a C++11 feature).
For example:
struct Q { int x; } q;
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p.x + q.x);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "DTpldtfp_1xdtL_Z1qE1xE".
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p.x + Q::x);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "DTpldtfp_1xsr1QE1xE".
template<class T> struct X { static T x; };
struct B: X<int> {};
struct D: B {} d;
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(p+d.B::X<T>::x);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "DTplfp_dtL_Z1dEsr1B1XIT_EE1xE". (The
// "1B" part is a <unresolved-qualifier-level> encoding
// a resolved type.)
<unresolved-name> refers to an operator for
which both unary and binary manglings are available, the mangling
chosen is the mangling for the binary version.
For example:
template<class T> auto f(T p)->decltype(&T::operator-);
// The return type in the mangling of the template signature
// is encoded as "DTadsrT_onmiE".
5.1.7 Scope Encoding
<local-name> ::= Z <function encoding> E <entity name> [<discriminator>]
::= Z <function encoding> E s [<discriminator>]
<discriminator> ::= _ <non-negative number> # when number < 10
::= __ <non-negative number> _ # when number >= 10
static local variable) is
mangled using an unscoped name, whereas a member of a local type will
be mangled with a <nested-name>.
X in a given function
g, and only the third has a member function f,
the name of X::f in g will still include
the discriminator _1 (because
3 - 2 == 1).
where the number is is omitted for the first unnamed type in the
function, and n-2 for the nth unnamed type
(in lexical order) otherwise.
<unnamed-type-name> ::= Ut [<nonnegative number> ] _
inline void g(int) {
{ struct S {}; }
{ struct S {}; }
{ struct S {}; }
struct S { // Fourth occurrence: _2
void f(int) { // _ZZ1giEN1S1fE_2i
struct {} x1;
struct {} x2;
struct { // Third occurrence: 1_, i.e.
// _ZZZ1giEN1S1fE_2iEUt1_
int fx() { // _ZZZ1giEN1S1fE_2iENUt1_2fxEv
return 3;
}
} x3;
x3.fx();
}
} s;
s.f(1);
}
C1 or D1 version. This yields mangled
names that are consistent across the versions.
inline char const* g() {
"str1"; // First string in g()
struct B {};
struct S: B {
S() // Complete object ctor: _ZZ1gvEN1SC1Ev
: msg("str2") {} // First string in g()::S::S():
// _ZZZ1gvEN1SC1EvEs
char const *msg;
} s;
"str3"; // Second string in g()
static char const *str4a // _ZZ1gvE5str4a
= "str4"; // Third string in g() (n-2 == 1):
// _ZZ1gvEs_1
static char const *str4b // _ZZ1gvE5str4b
= "str4"; // Still the third string (_ZZ1gvEs_1)
return str4b;
}
5.1.8 Closure Types (Lambdas)
namespace N {
int n = []{ return 1; }(); // Closure type internal to
} // the translation unit.
In all these contexts, the encoding of the closure types builds on an
underlying <unqualified-name> that is an <unnamed-type-name> of
the form
with
<unnamed-type-name> ::= <closure-type-name>
<closure-type-name> ::= Ul <lambda-sig> E [ <nonnegative number> ] _
The number is omitted for the first closure type with a given
<lambda-sig> in a given context; it is n-2 for the nth closure
type (in lexical order)
with that same <lambda-sig> and context.
<lambda-sig> ::= <parameter type>+ # Parameter types or "v" if the lambda has no parameters
template<typename F> int algo(F fn) { return fn(); }
inline void g(int n) {
int bef(int i = []{ return 1; }());
// Default arguments of block-extern function declarations
// remain in the context of the encloding function body.
// The closure type is encoded as Z1giEUlvE_.
// The call operator of that type is _ZZ1giENKUlvE_clEv.
algo([=]{return n+bef();});
// The captured entities do not participate in <lambda-sig>
// and so this closure type has the same <lambda-sig> as
// the previous one. It encoding is therefore Z1giEUlvE0_
// and the call operator is _ZZ1giENKUlvE0_clEv. The
// instance of "algo" being called is then
// _Z4algoIZ1giEUlvE0_EiT_.
}
<local-name> ::= Z <function encoding> Ed [ <parameter number> ] _ <entity name>
<entity name> will of course contain a
<closure-type-name>: Its numbering will be local to the
particular argument in which it appears -- other default arguments do
not affect its encoding.
For example:
struct S {
void f(int = []{return 1;}()
// Type: ZN1S1fEiiEd0_UlvE_
// Operator: _ZZN1S1fEiiEd0_NKUlvE_clEv
+ []{return 2;}(),
// Type: ZN1S1fEiiEd0_UlvE0_
// Operator: _ZZN1S1fEiiEd0_NKUlvE0_clEv
int = []{return 3;}());
// Type: ZN1S1fEiiEd_UlvE_
// Operator: _ZZN1S1fEiiEd_NKUlvE_clEv
} s;
<prefix> of the form:
<closure-prefix> ::= [ <prefix> ] <variable or member unqualified-name> M
::= <variable template template-prefix> <template-args> M
template<typename T> struct S {
static int x;
};
template<typename T> int S<T>::x = []{return 1;}();
template int S<int>::x;
// Type of lambda in intializer of S<int>::x: N1SIiE1xMUlvE_E
// Corresponding operator(): _ZNK1SIiE1xMUlvE_clEv
auto in the parameter list
are mangled as the corresponding artificial template type parameter.
This is never ambiguous with a lambda parameter whose type is an
enclosing template type parameter, because lambdas are never mangled
in a dependent context (they are forbidden from appearing in function
signatures). A <template-param> in a <lambda-sig> can only ever refer to a
template parameter of a generic lambda.
5.1.9 Lexical ordering
[x = []{}]{} are both part of the enclosing context.
The order of such entities is determined by the source order of a key
token in the entity. In general, this token is the first token
past which the signature of the entity (as is necessary to mangle it)
is known:
enum-head-name (enum-key if unnamed) or
class-head-name (class-key if unnamed)
in its first declaration.
}).
declarator (not its initializer).
if constexpr or in a pack expansion of an
empty pack. For example:
void g(...);
template<bool b, typename ...T> void f() {
if constexpr(b) { []{}; }
g(([]{}, []{ static T n; return &n; }())...);
}
// The first lambda is discarded and does not receive a number.
// The variables passed to g are therefore mangled as
// _ZZZ1fILb0EJiiEEvvENKUlvE0_clEvE1n and
// _ZZZ1fILb0EJiiEEvvENKUlvE2_clEvE1n.
template void f<false, int, int>();
// The variable passed to g is mangled as
// _ZZZ1fILb1EJiEEvvENKUlvE1_clEvE1n and
template void f<true, int>();
// Both lambdas are numbered; returns _ZZZ1hvENKUlvE0_clEvE1n.
inline int *h() {
if constexpr(false) { []{}; }
return []{ static int n; return &n; }();
}
mem-initializer-list reflects the order that the
initializers appear in the source, which may be different from the
order in which the initializers will be executed when the program runs.
5.1.10 Compression
Therefore, in the following example:
the function
typedef void T();
struct S {};
void f(T*, T (S::*)) {}
f is mangled as
_Z1fPFvvEM1SFvvE; the type of the member function pointed
to by the second parameter is not considered the same as the type of
the function pointed to by the first parameter. Both function types
are, however, entered the substitution table; subsequent references to
either variant of the function type will result in the use of
substitutions.
<substitution> ::= S <seq-id> _
::= S_
"_ZN1N1TIiiE2mfES0_IddE": Ret? N::T<int, int>::mf(N::T<double, double>)
"S_" == N (qualifier is less recent than qualified entity)
"S0_" == N::T (template-id comes before template)
(int is builtin, and isn't considered)
"S1_" == N::T<int, int>
"S2_" == N::T<double, double>
<substitution> ::= St # ::std::
<substitution> ::= Sa # ::std::allocator
<substitution> ::= Sb # ::std::basic_string
<substitution> ::= Ss # ::std::basic_string < char,
::std::char_traits<char>,
::std::allocator<char> >
<substitution> ::= Si # ::std::basic_istream<char, std::char_traits<char> >
<substitution> ::= So # ::std::basic_ostream<char, std::char_traits<char> >
<substitution> ::= Sd # ::std::basic_iostream<char, std::char_traits<char> >
"_ZSt5state": ::std::state
"_ZNSt3_In4wardE": ::std::_In::ward
5.2 Vague Linkage
SHT_GROUP sections in the
gABI to remove duplicates.
We will refer to this simply as using a COMDAT group,
and specify the symbol to be used to identify duplicates in the
SHT_GROUP section.
COMDAT groups are a new gABI feature specified during the Itanium ABI
definition, and may not be implemented everywhere immediately.
See the separate ABI examples
document for a discussion of alternatives pending COMDAT implementation.
5.2.1 Out-of-line Functions
5.2.2 Static Data
5.2.3 Virtual Tables
Note: previous versions of this ABI required virtual tables
to always be emitted with vague linkage, even when emitted in
a unique object. This is unnecessary and should not detectable
in a valid program; however, it is also harmless, and
implementations may opt to continue to do it for compatibility
with programs that are not strictly valid.
Note: the requirement to emit all of the tables for a class in a
single COMDAT does not currently serve any clear purpose beyond
reducing the number of COMDATs. There is no known optimization
that would result in e.g. a VTT that would only work correctly
with the paired virtual table or vice-versa. Nonetheless, it is
required by the ABI and is largely harmless.
constexpr
or consteval functions are always declared as such on
their first declarations and so are implicitly inline,
so they are never key functions.
Recommendation for new platforms: when
selecting the key function, ignore virtual function definitions
that are inline outside of the class definition. Inline function
definitions must be defined in every translation unit that ODR-use
them, and virtual functions are considered to always be ODR-used.
Therefore, in a valid program, every translation unit that sees
a class definition must agree about which of its virtual functions
are defined inline outside of the class. Some platforms are known
to have already adopted this rule.
Recommendation for new platforms:
when selecting the key function, also consider pure virtual
destructors as candidates. Virtual destructors must be defined
even if they are pure.
5.2.4
std::type_infostd::type_info structure for a complete dynamic
class type whose virtual tables are emitted in a unique object (see
above) is emitted with non-vague linkage
in the same object as its virtual tables.
std::type_info structure for an incomplete class
type is emitted wherever referenced. It is implementation-defined
what symbol name it uses, other than that it must not be the same
symbol name as any other entity, including the complete class type.
It also implementation-defined whether they are emitted in a COMDAT
group or just with internal linkage.
std::type_info structures for various basic
types as specified by the Run-Time Type Information
section are provided by the runtime library.
std::type_info structure for any other type
is emitted with vague linkage using the symbol name as the COMDAT
identifier.
std::type_info object has non-vague linkage
in order to support interoperation with incomplete RTTI for incomplete
types.
Recommendation for new platforms:
the linkage rules for RTTI
std::type_info and name
objects are known to cause both semantic and performance problems
when dynamic linking is in use. This is an area where there is
widespread divergence from this ABI, chiefly to avoid the need
for cross-image symbol coalescing. Several different approaches
for this are in use, with different underlying goals. For now,
there is not a clear recommendation to make, other than that the
current rule is not the best.
5.2.5 Constructors and Destructors
5.2.6 Instantiated Templates
5.3 Unwind Table Location
SHT_IA_64_UNWIND section,
and unwind information descriptors in a section that will be linked
with the associated code.
Itanium linkers shall put the unwind table,
the unwind information table,
and the associated code in a single text segment,
with a PT_IA_64_UNWIND program table entry identifying the
unwind table location.
Appendix R: Revision History
abi_tag mangling.operator "".decltype(auto).__cxa_throw_bad_array_new_length mangling.noexcept mangling.nullptr_t mangling.alignof,
function parameters, and a different mangling for N-argument
function casts.out0 for by-value return types on
Itanium.__cxa_vec_delete.__cxa_vec_delete when the
array_address is NULL.__cxa_vec_new,
__cxa_vec_new2, and __cxa_vec_new3 in
the event that the allocation function returns NULL.void* instead of dso_handle.__cxa_vec_new2 and
__cxa_vec_new3 when the deallocation function
throws an exception.sr in mangling.__cxa_demangle memory management
specification.