Hi all,

The current (C++17, C++20) spec of nullopt_t [1] requires that nullopt_t
shall not have a default constructor ([...] or an initializer-list
constructor, and shall not be an aggregate).

P0032R3 [2] (Homogeneous interface for variant, any and optional), one of
the papers which was part of introducing optional, had a discussion around
the nullopt_t type, tag types in general, and the DefaultConstructible
requirement. Particularly, from section 'Not assignable from {}':

> To re-enforce this design, there is an pending issue 2510-Tag types
should not be DefaultConstructible Core issue 2510.

At the time of P0032R3, the resolution of of LWG issue 2510 [3] was indeed
for all tag types to not be DefaultConstructible, but this resolution was
later superseded as part of the resolution of CWG issue 1518 [4], which in
turn reverted parts of the resolution of CWG issue 1630 [5] (which "went
too far in allowing use of explicit constructors for default
initialization"). The final resolution for CWG 1518 (P0398R0 [6]) lead to
the requirement for aggregate classes to not have any explicit
[user-declared] constructors, and LWG 2510 was resolved accordingly by
making all tag types have explicit user-declared (constexpr) default
constructors.

However, the spec of nullopt_t never changed after these events or as part
of updating other tag types, and it is still explicitly required to not be
DefaultConstructible (nor have a initialization-list constructor) and to
not be an aggregate, whereas the implementation of it is otherwise
unspecified.

Is this an oversight, and should the requirements for the nullopt_t type
instead be provided via a synopsis such as for the other tag types, with a
user-provided explicit (explicitly-defaulted) default constructor?

Note that we still see some compiler variance on the topic of CWG 1518/1630
[7].

References:
[1] [optional.nullopt]/2,
https://timsong-cpp.github.io/cppwp/n4659/optional.nullopt#2
[2] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2016/p0032r3.pdf
[3] http://cplusplus.github.io/LWG/lwg-defects.html#2510
[4] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/cwg_defects.html#1518
[5] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/cwg_defects.html#1630
[6] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2016/p0398r0.html
[7] https://godbolt.org/z/Tf96s4Krf

Cheers,
David