A mechanized semantics for C++ object construction and destruction, with applications to resource management

Authors:
Tahina Ramananandro;Gabriel Dos Reis;Xavier Leroy
Affiliations:
INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt, Le Chesnay, France;Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA;INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt, Le Chesnay, France
Venue:
POPL '12 Proceedings of the 39th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages
Year:
2012

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Abstract

We present a formal operational semantics and its Coq mechanization for the C++ object model, featuring object construction and destruction, shared and repeated multiple inheritance, and virtual function call dispatch. These are key C++ language features for high-level system programming, in particular for predictable and reliable resource management. This paper is the first to present a formal mechanized account of the metatheory of construction and destruction in C++, and applications to popular programming techniques such as "resource acquisition is initialization". We also report on irregularities and apparent contradictions in the ISO C++03 and C++11 standards.