The Standard says:
To value-initialize an object of type T means:- - if T is a (possibly cv-qualified) class type with either no default constructor or a default constructor that is user-provided or deleted, then the object is default-initialized;
- - if T is a (possibly cv-qualified) class type without a user-provided or deleted default constructor, *then the object is zero-initialized* and the semantic constraints for default-initialization are checked, and if T has a non-trivial default constructor, the object is default-initialized;
I'm wondering, why in C++11 an object needs to be zero-initialized (this was not the case before C++11)? I can't find a proposal/DR that changes that, but I suspect that this is to align with value-initialization of scalar types (which implies zero-initializaiton).
I'm sure symmetry with value-initialization of scalar types is the reason. It would be very strange if for the `pair<int, array<int, 1>> p;` p.first == 0, but p.second[0] has indeterminate value.
The problem is that this leads to suboptimal code generation:
https://godbolt.org/z/pwYjLP (this is a minimized example from optional implementation in abseil).
Is it possible just to remove mem-initializer for `dummy` (
https://godbolt.org/z/22zBTu)? Or, even better, remove definition of `optional()` to make it trivially-default-constructible?