According to cppreference, std::construct_at(T*p, Args&&... args)
is equivalent to
return ::new (const_cast<void*>(static_cast<const volatile void*>(p)))
T(std::forward<Args>(args)...);
What is the need/purpose for the cast 'through' const volatile void*
? In other words, why is construct_at
not simply equivalent to
return ::new (static_cast<void*>(p))
T(std::forward<Args>(args)...);
Under which conditions would this latter code cause undesirable behaviour?
std::construct_at
accepts as T
any type... which may have cv-qualifiers.
Meanwhile, static_cast
may not cast away constness. The version you propose would fail for
const foo * ptr = get_mem();
ptr = std::construct_at(ptr); // Error here when naively static casting to void*
But static_cast
may add cv-qualifiers. So in order to be generic, the version that is standardized avoids this problem. It static casts to the most cv-qualified version of of a void
pointer, and then removes those qualifiers.