What optimization does move semantics provide if we already have RVO?

Question

As far as I understand one of the purposes of adding move semantics is to optimize code by calling special constructor for copying \"temporary\" objects. For example, in th

Answer 1

Imagine your stuff was a class with heap allocated memory like a string, and that it had the notion of capacity. Give it a operator+= that will grow the capacity geometrically. In C++03 this might look like:

#include 
#include 

struct stuff
{
    int size;
    int cap;

    stuff(int size_):size(size_)
    {
        cap = size;
        if (cap > 0)
            std::cout <<"allocating " << cap < 0)
            std::cout <<"allocating " << cap < 0)
            std::cout << "deallocating " << cap << '\n';
    }

    stuff& operator+=(const stuff& y)
    {
        if (cap < size+y.size)
        {
            if (cap > 0)
                std::cout << "deallocating " << cap << '\n';
            cap = std::max(2*cap, size+y.size);
            std::cout <<"allocating " << cap <

Also imagine you want to add more than just two stuff's at a time:

int main()
{
    stuff a(11),b(9),c(7),d(5);
    std::cout << "start addition\n\n";
    stuff e = a+b+c+d;
    std::cout << "\nend addition\n";
}

For me this prints out:

allocating 11
allocating 9
allocating 7
allocating 5
start addition

allocating 20
allocating 27
allocating 32
deallocating 27
deallocating 20

end addition
deallocating 32
deallocating 5
deallocating 7
deallocating 9
deallocating 11

I count 3 allocations and 2 deallocations to compute:

stuff e = a+b+c+d;

Now add move semantics:

    stuff(stuff&& g):size(g.size), cap(g.cap)
    {
        g.cap = 0;
        g.size = 0;
    }

...

stuff operator+(stuff&& lhs,const stuff& rhs)
{
        return std::move(lhs += rhs);
}

Running again I get:

allocating 11
allocating 9
allocating 7
allocating 5
start addition

allocating 20
deallocating 20
allocating 40

end addition
deallocating 40
deallocating 5
deallocating 7
deallocating 9
deallocating 11

I'm now down to 2 allocations and 1 deallocations. That translates to faster code.