My C++ Standards committee papers

Modified February 5, 2008

This is an incomplete list of papers that I (Bjarne Stroustrup) have written or co-authored for the C++ standards committee. Please remember that these are incomplete proposals, discussions of alternatives, and exploration of the design space. Note also that these papers were all written to a specific audience (the members of the C++ standards committee), at a specific time (relative to the then current draft of the standard), and as part of a specific discussion. They are typically not ideal introcutions for a general audience. Not all has led to or will lead to changes to C++, and most of those will "mutate" significantly as they progress from idea/proposal to final language change. The order is roughly reverse chronological. I aim eventually to gather all of my standard committee papers here. For more information (in particular for essentially all papers since 1993), see the WG21 site. Here is a recent status of work of the "Evolution Working Group"; that is, the group (headed by me) that is processing the proposals for new language features. Please note that this is a summary, written for the EWG members; not a tutorial.

• B. Stroustrup: Uniform initialization design choices (Revision 2). N2532. February 2008.
• J. Stephen Adamczyk, G. Dos Reis, and B. Stroustrup: Initializer list WP wording (Revision 2). N2531. February 2008.

• J. Jarvi, B. Stroustrup, G. Dos Reis: Decltype (revision 7): proposed wording. N2343. July 2007.
• D. Miller, H. Sutter, B. Stroustrup: Strongly Typed Enums (revision 3). N2347. July 2007.
• G. Dos Reis, B. Stroustrup: Constant Expressions in the Standard Library -- Revision 2. N2349. July 2007.
• I. McIntosh, M. Wong, R. Mak, R. Klarer, et al.: User-defined Literals (aka. Extensible Literals (revision 3)). N2378. July 2007.
• J. S. Adamczyk, G. Dos Reis, B. Stroustrup: Initializer lists WP wording. N2385. July 2007.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: An analysis of concept intersection. N2221. March 2007.
• G. Dos Reis, B. Stroustrup: Initializer Lists for Standard Containers. N2220. March 2007.
• G. Dos Reis, B. Stroustrup: Constant Expressions in the Standard Library. N2219. March 2007.
• P. Pirkelbauer, Y. Solodkyy, B. Stroustrup: Report on language support for Multi-Methods and Open-Methods for C++. N2216. March 2007.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Initialer lists (Rev3.). N2215. March 2007.
• H. Sutter, B. Stroustrup: A name for the null pointer: nullptr (revision 3). N2214. March 2007.
• H. Sutter, D. Miller, and B. Stroustrup: Strongly Typed Enums (revision 2). N2213. March 2007.
• D. Gregor, B. Stroustrup: Proposed Wording for Concepts. N2193. March 2007.

• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Initialer lists (Rev2.). N2100. September 2006. Revision of N1919.
• D. Gregor, B. Stroustrup: Concepts. N2042==06-0012 . June 2006.
• J. Jarvi, B. Stroustrup, G. Dos Reis: Deducing the type of variable from its initializer expression (revision 4). N1984==06-0054. June 2006. ("auto"). Approved in principle.
• J. Jarvi, B. Stroustrup, G. Dos Reis: Decltype (revision 5). N1978==06-0048. June 2006. Revision of N1705==04-0145. Approved in principle.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Generalized constant expressions (Rev. 3). N1980==06-0050. June 2006. Revision of N1972==06-0042. Approved in principle.
• H. Hinnant, B. Stroustrup, B. Kozicki: A Brief Introduction to Rvalue References. N2027==06-0097. June 2006. Revision of N1972==06-0042. Approved in principle.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Generalized constant expressions (Rev. 2). N1972=06-0042. February 2006. Revision of N1521=03-0104. Approved in principle.
• Jeremiah Willcock et al: Lambda expressions and closures for C++. N1968=06-0038. February 2006. Discussion of design choices and best effort design.

• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Initialer lists. December 2005.
• G. Dos Reis and B. Stroustrup: A formalism for C++. N1885, Oct. 2005
• G. Dos Reis and B. Stroustrup: Specifying C++ concepts. N1886, Oct. 2005.
• J. Jarvi, B. Stroustrup and G. Dos Reis: Deducing the type of a variable from its initializer expression. N1894, Oct. 2005. Approved in principle.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Initialization and initializers. September 2005. An overview of initialization and initializer problems with suggested solutions. Follow up: N1919, N???, N???, and N???.
• Bjarne Stroustrup, and Gabriel Dos Reis: A concept design (Rev. 1). April 2005. An attempt to synthesize a concept design based on (among other sources) N1510, N1522, and N1536.

• Jaakko Jarvi, Bjarne Stroustrup, and Gabriel Dos Reis: Decltype and auto (revision 4). September 2004. Follow up: N1894.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: #scope: A simple scoping mechanism for the C/C++ preprocessor. N1614/04-0054. In retrospect, I think #scope is a bad name for what I'm trying to achieve. A scope implicitly let in names. Maybe the proposal would have fared better if it had been called #macro, #nomacro, or #filter.
• H. Sutter and B. Stroustrup: A name for the null pointer: nullptr (revision 2). N1601/04-0041.

• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Concepts -- Syntax and composition. October 2003. An early discussion of how to express concept checking in C++. Follow up: N1890.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Concepts -- Design choices for template argument checking. October 2003. An early discussion of design criteria for concepts for C++. Follow up: N1890.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Concept checking -- A more abstract complement to type checking. October 2003. A discussion of models of concept checking. Follow up: N1890.
• G. Dos Reis and B.Stroustrup: Generalized Initializer Lists N1509, Sep. 2003. Follow up: N1919.
• Herb Sutter and Bjarne Stroustrup A name for the null pointer: nullptr. September 2003.
• Lois Goldthwaithe (editor): Technical Report on C++ Performance. August 2003.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Gabriel Dos Reis: Template aliases for C++. July 2003.
• J. Järvi and B. Stroustrup: Mechanisms for querying types of expressions: decltype and auto revisited. N1527/03-0110.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Evolution WG issues list. N1512/03-0095.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Literals for user-defined types. N1511/03-0094.
• J. Järvi, B. Stroustrup, D. Gregor, J. Siek: Decltype and auto. N1478/03-0061.

• Bjarne Stroustrup: The Problem with Default Arguments for Templates. WG21/N1070 X3J16/97-0032.

• Bjarne Stroustrup: Allocators. WG21/N0999 X3J16/96-0181.
• John Wilkinson, Bjarne Stroustrup: Working Paper Changes for the Template Compilation Model. WG21/N0973 X3J16/96-0155R1
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Proposal to Acknowledge that Garbage Collection for C++ is Possible. WG21/N0932 X3J16/96-0114.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Separate Compilation Must Stay! WG21/N0885 X3J16/96-0067.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Relaxing the Rules for Void. WG21/N0849 X3J16/96-0031.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: A Standard Adapter to Support Polymorphic Containers. WG21/N0848 X3J16/96-0030.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Alex Stepanov: Bring Back the Obvious Definition of count(). WG21/N0847 X3J16/96-0029.

• Bjarne Stroustrup: Relaxation of Qualified Lookup. 95-0145/N0745.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: A Suggestion for Simplifying the Use of Adaptors. N0729/95-0129.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Relaxing the Rules for Namespace::Member WG21/N0635 X3J16/95-0035.

• Bjarne Stroustrup: Major Template Issues (Note for discussion. Revision 0). WG21/N0578 X3J16/94-0191.

• Bjarne Stroustrup: Defined Value for T(). X3J16/93-0157 WG21/N0364.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: New Casts Revisited. X3J16/93-0142 WG21/N0349.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Major Template Issues (Note for discussion). X3J16/93-0081 WG21/N0288.
• Bjarne Stroustrup: Name Space Management in C++ (revised). X3J16/93-0055 WG21/N0262.
• B. Sroustrup: Suggested working document changes for new cast notation. 93-0023/N0231.

• Bjarne Stroustrup: An alternative to old-style casts. 92-0122/N0199.
• B. Stroustrup: Name space management in C++. 92-0123/N0169.
• Bjarne Stroustrup, Martin J. O'Riordan, Andrew Koenig, Jonathan Shopiro: Proposed Revisions to the Template Specification. X3J16/92-0133 WG21/N0209.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Dmitry Lenkov: Run-time type information for C++ (Revised). 92-0068/N0145.
• Bjarne Stroustrup and Dmitry Lenkov: Run-time type information for C++. 92-0028/N0105.

• Andrew Koenig and Bjarne Stroustrup: Analysis of overloaded operator.(). 91-0121.
• Andrew Koenig and Bjarne Stroustrup: C++: As close to C as possible but no closer. 91-0089/N0089.

• B. Stroustrup: A detailed proposal for generalization of overriding (draft). X3J16/90-0067.
• B. Stroustrup: A proposal for generalization of overriding. X3J16/90-0046.

• and of course the reference manual from The C++ Programming Language (2nd edition, 1991) and some of the annotations from the ARM.