Take the address of a one-past-the-end array element via subscript: legal by the C++ Standard or not?

Question

I have seen it asserted several times now that the following code is not allowed by the C++ Standard:

int array[5];
int *array_begin = &array[0];
int *ar         


        

Answer 1

Working draft (n2798):

"The result of the unary & operator is a pointer to its operand. The operand shall be an lvalue or a qualified-id. In the first case, if the type of the expression is “T,” the type of the result is “pointer to T.”" (p. 103)

array[5] is not a qualified-id as best I can tell (the list is on p. 87); the closest would seem to be identifier, but while array is an identifier array[5] is not. It is not an lvalue because "An lvalue refers to an object or function. " (p. 76). array[5] is obviously not a function, and is not guaranteed to refer to a valid object (because array + 5 is after the last allocated array element).

Obviously, it may work in certain cases, but it's not valid C++ or safe.

Note: It is legal to add to get one past the array (p. 113):

"if the expression P [a pointer] points to the last element of an array object, the expression (P)+1 points one past the last element of the array object, and if the expression Q points one past the last element of an array object, the expression (Q)-1 points to the last element of the array object. If both the pointer operand and the result point to elements of the same array object, or one past the last element of the array object, the evaluation shall not produce an overflow"

But it is not legal to do so using &.