Observable behavior and undefined behavior — What happens if I don't call a destructor?

Question

Note: I\'ve seen similar questions, but none of the answers are precise enough, so I\'m asking this myself.

This is a very nitpicky "language-lawye

Answer 1

This exact issue with the wording is the subject of editorial pull request against the draft C++ standard [basic.life] Remove description of impossible UB which seeks to strike this wording from the draft standard:

A destructor that is not called cannot produce side effects, therefore it is impossible to depend on those side effects.

After much discussion it seemed to lean towards that direction:

Editorial meeting: The standard rules cannot depend on the programmer's intent. Pass to CWG with the intent of applying as-is.

but it needs to be reviewed by the Core Working Group (CWG) first and is therefore not an editorial change. I believe this means it will eventually show up as a defect report.

So in conclusion this looks like an open issue as to whether that wording has any meaning at all but it will be reviewied by CWG eventually.