ISO/IEC FCD 26926

C++/CLI Language Specification

Specification du langage C++/CLI

General Information

• Status: Withdrawn
• ICS: 35.060 - Languages used in information technology
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 - Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 - Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
• Current Stage: 4098 - Project deleted
• Start Date: 19-May-2008
• Completion Date: 14-Feb-2026

Standards Content (Sample)

DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 26926
Attributed to ISO/IEC JTC 1 by the Central Secretariat (see page iii)

Voting begins on Voting terminates on
2006-03-09 2006-08-09
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATION • МЕЖДУНАРОДНАЯ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЯ ПО СТАНДАРТИЗАЦИИ • ORGANISATION INTERNATIONALE DE NORMALISATION
INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION • МЕЖДУНАРОДНАЯ ЭЛЕКТРОТЕХНИЧЕСКАЯ КОММИСИЯ • COMMISSION ÉLECTROTECHNIQUE INTERNATIONALE

FAST-TRACK PROCEDURE
C++/CLI Language Specification
Specification du langage C++/CLI
ICS 35.060
In accordance with the provisions of Council Resolution 21/1986 this DIS is circulated in the
English language only.
Conformément aux dispositions de la Résolution du Conseil 21/1986, ce DIS est distribué en
version anglaise seulement.
THIS DOCUMENT IS A DRAFT CIRCULATED FOR COMMENT AND APPROVAL. IT IS THEREFORE SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND MAY NOT BE
REFERRED TO AS AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD UNTIL PUBLISHED AS SUCH.
IN ADDITION TO THEIR EVALUATION AS BEING ACCEPTABLE FOR INDUSTRIAL, TECHNOLOGICAL, COMMERCIAL AND USER PURPOSES,
DRAFT INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS MAY ON OCCASION HAVE TO BE CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR POTENTIAL TO BECOME
STANDARDS TO WHICH REFERENCE MAY BE MADE IN NATIONAL REGULATIONS.
International Organization for Standardization, 2006
©
International Electrotechnical Commission, 2006

ISO/IEC DIS 26926
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ii © ISO/IEC 2006 — All rights reserved

ISO/IEC DIS 26926
NOTE FROM ITTF
This draft International Standard is submitted for JTC 1 national body vote under the Fast-Track Procedure.
In accordance with Resolution 30 of the JTC 1 Berlin Plenary 1993, the proposer of this document recommends
assignment of ISO/IEC 26926 to JTC 1/SC 22.
“FAST-TRACK” PROCEDURE
1  Any P-member and any Category A liaison organization of ISO/IEC JTC 1 may propose that an existing
standard from any source be submitted directly for vote as a DIS. The criteria for proposing an existing
standard for the fast-track procedure are a matter for each proposer to decide.
2  The proposal shall be received by the ITTF which will take the following actions.
2.1  To settle the copyright and/or trade mark situation with the proposer, so that the proposed text can be
freely copied and distributed within JTC 1 without restriction.
2.2  To assess in consultation with the JTC 1 secretariat which SC is competent for the subject covered by
the proposed standard and to ascertain that there is no evident contradiction with other International
Standards.
2.3  To distribute the text of the proposed standard as a DIS. In case of particularly bulky documents the ITTF
may demand the necessary number of copies from the proposer.
3  The period for combined DIS voting shall be six months. In order to be accepted the DIS must be
supported by 75 % of the votes cast (abstention is not counted as a vote) and by two-thirds of the P-members
voting of JTC 1.
4  At the end of the voting period, the comments received, whether editorial only or technical, will be dealt
with by a working group appointed by the secretariat of the relevant SC.
5  If, after the deliberations of this WG, the requirements of 3 above are met, the amended text shall be sent
to the ITTF by the secretariat of the relevant SC for publication as an International Standard.
If it is impossible to agree to a text meeting the above requirements, the proposal has failed and the procedure
is terminated.
In either case the WG shall prepare a full report which will be circulated by the ITTF.
6  If the proposed standard is accepted and published, its maintenance will be handled by JTC 1.

© ISO/IEC 2006 — All rights reserved iii

ECMA-372
st
1 Edition / December 2005
C++/CLI Language
Specification
Standard
ECMA-372
st
1 Edition / December 2005
C++/CLI Language
Specification
Ecma International  Rue du Rhône 114  CH-1204 Geneva  T/F: [phone]/01  www.ecma-international.org

.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction.xii
1. Scope. 1
2. Conformance . 2
3. Normative references . 3
4. Definitions . 4
5. Notational conventions. 7
6. Acronyms and abbreviations . 8
7. General description. 9
8. Language overview. 10
8.1 Getting started . 10
8.2 Types . 10
8.2.1 Fundamental types and the CLI . 12
8.2.2 Conversions . 13
8.2.3 CLI array types . 13
8.2.4 Type system unification. 13
8.2.5 Pointers, handles, and null . 14
8.3 Parameters . 16
8.4 Automatic memory management. 17
8.5 Expressions. 18
8.6 Statements. 19
8.7 Delegates . 19
8.8 Native and ref classes . 20
8.8.1 Literal fields. 20
8.8.2 Initonly fields. 21
8.8.3 Functions. 21
8.8.4 Properties . 21
8.8.5 Events. 23
8.8.6 Static operators . 24
8.8.7 Instance constructors. 25
8.8.8 Destructors and finalizers . 25
8.8.9 Static constructors. 26
8.8.10 Inheritance . 27
8.9 Value classes . 28
8.10 Interfaces . 28
8.11 Enums. 30
8.12 Namespaces and assemblies . 30
8.13 Versioning . 31
8.14 Attributes . 32
8.15 Generics. 33
8.15.1 Creating and consuming generics . 33
8.15.2 Constraints . 34
8.15.3 Generic functions. 35
9. Lexical structure. 37
9.1 Tokens . 37
9.1.1 Identifiers. 37
9.1.2 Keywords. 38
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C++/CLI Language Specification
9.1.3 Literals . 39
9.1.4 Operators and punctuators . 40
10. Basic concepts. 41
10.1 Assemblies. 41
10.2 Application entry point. 41
10.3 Importing types from assemblies. 41
10.4 Reserved names . 42
10.5 Members. 43
10.5.1 Value class members. 43
10.5.2 Delegate members. 43
10.6 Member access . 43
10.6.1 Declared accessibility . 43
10.7 Name lookup . 44
11. Preprocessor . 48
11.1 Conditional inclusion. 48
11.2 Predefined macro names. 48
12. Types . 49
12.1 Value types . 50
12.1.1 Fundamental types . 50
12.2 Class types. 51
12.2.1 Value classes. 51
12.2.2 Ref classes. 51
12.2.3 Interface classes . 51
12.2.4 Delegate types. 51
12.3 Declarator types. 52
12.3.1 Raw types. 52
12.3.2 Pointer types . 52
12.3.3 Handle types . 52
12.3.4 Null type . 53
12.3.5 Reference types. 53
12.3.6 Interior pointers. 54
12.3.7 Pinning pointers . 55
12.3.8 Native arrays. 57
12.4 Top-level type visibility . 57
13. Variables . 58
13.1 gc-lvalues. 58
13.1.1 Standard conversions . 58
13.1.2 Expressions . 59
13.1.3 Reference initializers . 60
13.1.4 Temporary objects . 60
13.2 File-scope and namespace-scope variables . 60
13.3 Direct initialization. 60
14. Conversions. 62
14.1 Conversion sequences . 62
14.2 Standard conversions. 62
14.2.1 Handle conversions. 62
14.2.2 Pointer conversions. 63
14.2.3 Lvalue conversions . 64
14.2.4 Integral promotions. 64
14.2.5 String literal conversions . 65
14.2.6 Boxing conversions. 66
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Table of Contents
14.3 Implicit conversions . 66
14.3.1 Implicit constant expression conversions . 66
14.3.2 User-defined implicit conversions . 66
14.3.3 Boolean Equivalence . 66
14.4 Explicit conversions . 67
14.5 User-defined conversions . 67
14.5.1 Constructors. 67
14.5.2 Explicit conversion functions . 67
14.5.3 Static conversion functions. 67
14.6 Parameter array conversions. 67
14.7 Naming conventions. 68
15. Expressions . 70
15.1 Function members . 70
15.2 Primary expressions. 71
15.3 Postfix expressions . 71
15.3.1 Subscripting and indexed access. 72
15.3.2 Function call . 72
15.3.3 Explicit type conversion (functional notation). 72
15.3.4 Class member access. 73
15.3.5 Increment and decrement. 73
15.3.6 Dynamic cast. 73
15.3.7 Type identification. 74
15.3.8 Static cast . 75
15.3.9 Reinterpret cast . 76
15.3.10 Const cast. 76
15.3.11 Safe cast . 76
15.4 Unary expressions . 77
15.4.1 Unary operators. 77
15.4.2 Increment and decrement. 79
15.4.3 Sizeof . 80
15.4.4 New. 80
15.4.5 Delete. 80
15.4.6 The gcnew operator. 81
15.4.7 The throw expression. 81
15.5 Explicit type conversion (cast notation) . 81
15.6 Additive operators . 82
15.6.1 Delegate combination . 82
15.6.2 Delegate removal . 82
15.6.3 String concatenation. 82
15.7 Shift operators . 83
15.8 Relational operators. 83
15.8.1 Handle equality operators . 83
15.8.2 Delegate equality operators. 84
15.8.3 String equality. 85
15.9 Logical AND operator. 85
15.10 Logical OR operator . 85
15.11 Conditional operator. 85
15.12 Assignment operators . 85
15.13 Constant expressions . 86
15.14 Property and event rewrite rules. 86
16. Statements. 89
16.1 Selection statements . 89
16.1.1 The switch statement. 89
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C++/CLI Language Specification
16.2 Iteration statements. 89
16.2.1 The for each statement. 89
16.3 Jump statements. 91
16.3.1 The break statement . 91
16.3.2 The continue statement . 91
16.3.3 The return statement . 91
16.3.4 The goto statement. 91
16.4 The try block. 91
17. Namespaces. 93
17.1 Reserved namespaces . 93
18. Functions. 94
18.1 -style variable-argument lists. 94
18.2 Name lookup . 94
18.3 Overload resolution . 94
18.4 Parameter arrays . 94
18.5 Importing native functions. 96
18.6 Non-member functions. 97
18.7 Attributes . 97
19. Classes and members . 98
19.1 Class definitions . 98
19.1.1 Class modifiers . 99
19.2 Reserved member names. 100
19.2.1 Member names reserved for properties. 100
19.2.2 Member names reserved for events . 101
19.2.3 Member names reserved for functions. 101
19.2.4 Possible collision with reserved property and event names. 102
19.3 Data members. 103
19.4 Functions . 103
19.4.1 Override functions . 104
19.4.2 Sealed function modifier. 107
19.4.3 Abstract function modifier. 107
19.4.4 New function modifier. 108
19.5 Properties. 109
19.5.1 Qualified names of properties and events. 110
19.5.2 Static and instance properties. 111
19.5.3 Accessor functions. 111
19.5.4 Virtual, sealed, abstract, and override accessor functions . 113
19.5.5 Trivial scalar properties . 114
19.6 Events . 115
19.6.1 Static and instance events . 116
19.6.2 Accessor functions. 116
19.6.3 Virtual, sealed, abstract, and override accessor functions . 117
19.6.4 Trivial events . 117
19.6.5 Event invocation . 117
19.7 Static operators . 117
19.7.1 Homogenizing the candidate overload set . 119
19.7.2 Operators on handles. 119
19.7.3 Increment and decrement operators . 120
19.7.4 Operator synthesis. 123
19.7.5 Naming conventions . 123
19.8 Non-static operators. 126
19.9 Instance constructors . 126
19.10 Static constructors . 127
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Table of Contents
19.11 Literal fields. 128
19.12 Initonly fields. 129
19.12.1 Using static initonly fields for constants. 130
19.12.2 Versioning of literal fields and static initonly fields. 130
19.13 Destructors and finalizers . 130
19.13.1 Destructors. 131
19.13.2 Finalizers. 131
20. Native classes . 133
20.1 Functions . 133
20.2 Properties. 133
20.3 Static operators . 133
20.4 Delegates . 133
20.5 Friends . 133
20.6 Events . 134
20.7 Finalizer. 134
20.8 Initonly and literal fields. 134
20.9 Static constructors . 134
21. Ref classes . 135
21.1 Ref class definitions . 135
21.1.1 Ref class base specification . 135
21.2 Ref class members. 135
21.2.1 Variable initializers. 135
21.3 Functions . 136
21.4 Properties. 136
21.5 Events . 136
21.6 Static operators . 137
21.7 Non-static operators. 137
21.8 Instance constructors . 137
21.9 Static constructor . 137
21.10 Literal fields. 137
21.11 Initonly fields. 137
21.12 Destructors and finalizers . 137
21.13 Delegates . 137
22. Value classes . 138
22.1 Value class definitions. 138
22.1.1 Value class base specification. 138
22.2 Value class members . 138
22.3 Ref class and value class differences. 139
22.3.1 Inheritance . 139
22.3.2 Default values . 139
22.3.3 Meaning of this . 139
22.3.4 Destructors and finalizers . 139
22.4 Simple value classes . 140
22.5 Constructors. 140
22.6 Operators . 140
23. Mixed types. 141
24. CLI arrays. 142
24.1 CLI array types. 142
24.1.1 The System::Array type .
...