Is default constructor elision / assignment elision possible in principle?

Question

. or even allowed by the C++11 standard?

And if so, is there any compiler that actually does it?

Here is an example of what I mean:

template&         


        

Answer 1

Jan Hudec's answer has a very good point about the as-if rule (+1 for him).

Hence, the assignment elision is allowed -- as he said -- provided that there's no observable effect. The fact that your assignment operator outputs "ASSIGN" is enough to prevent the optimization.

Notice that the situation is different for copy/move constructors because the standard allows elision for copy/move constructor even if they have observable side effects (see 12.8/31).