Thread: Gcc can't find obvious copy constructor

Originally Posted by CornedBee

The requirement has nothing to do with performance or strict correctness. The fact is that non-const reference parameters should only be used where there is the intention of modifying the argument. With a temporary, such modifications would not be visible when the function returns. Thus, passing a temporary to a function expecting a non-const reference is most likely unintentional and the wrong thing to do. The C++ standard committee thought this sufficient reason to forbid binding non-const references to temporaries. MS thought differently, and later got caught in compatibility concerns.

OK I can see the logic of that. My only problem is that when I adhere by this I seem to get a lot errors from MS Visual studio with regards to passing non constant parameters into the arguments. I end up doing const casts and the const keyword starts to spread like a virus.

When I have time I'll try to generate a case of this.