[LLVMbugs] [Bug 10983] -Wunused-parameter should not warn about virtual method declarations with bodies

bugzilla-daemon at llvm.org bugzilla-daemon at llvm.org
Thu Sep 22 08:33:03 PDT 2011


http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=10983

Douglas Gregor <dgregor at apple.com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |INVALID

--- Comment #1 from Douglas Gregor <dgregor at apple.com> 2011-09-22 10:33:02 CDT ---
(In reply to comment #0)
> In the following code:
> 
>    struct X { virtual void f (int a) { } };
> 
> One gets a warning from -Wunused-parameter, "unused parameter 'a'".
> 
> While this is understandable, I think it's undesirable -- clearly the parameter
> 'a' will often be used by overrides of X::f, and the parameter name 'a' serves
> a valuable documentation purpose here, even if it's not strictly required.
> 
> The basic problem of course, is that in this case, f is both a virtual method
> declaration which covers overriding methods as well, and a definition of X's
> definition of it.
> 
> One can avoid this by defining X::f outside the class definition, but for
> trivial definitions like the above, this would seem like annoying make-work if
> done only to shut up -Wunused-parameter.
> 
> My current method of avoiding the warning is to comment out the parameter name: 
> 
>    virtual void f (int /* a */) { }
> 
> but this again seems like an annoying wart, rather than natural code -- it's
> both less readable (especially when the parameter has a funny type like a
> function pointer) and yields a slightly confusing inconsistency ("why do you
> comment-out some method parameter names but not others?!" "oh it's just to shut
> up -Wunused-parameter... :(").
> 
> Anyway, the current behavior seems wrong to me; I think -Wunused-parameter
> should stay silent for method virtual definitions inside the class definition.

I disagree. I would find it very weird---and very annoying---if I lost out on
this warning just because my function was virtual. Granted, some virtuals can
be fixed (this parameter is never needed) and some cannot (this parameter is
only important for some of the virtual overrides), but I think the principle of
least surprise says that we shouldn't silence the warning for parameters of
virtuals. Plus, there are three (!) ways to silence this warning:
  - comment out the parameter name
  - add __attribute__((unused) to the parameter, after the parameter name
  - add "(void)a;" to the function body, to silence the warning

The latter two both provide better documentation that you intended not to use
this parameter than your suggestion of just turning off the warning.

> p.s. gcc does the same thing; I just posted an identical bug to gcc's bugzilla
> ... :]

IIRC, this discussion came up regarding GCC's behavior once, something like 10
years ago, and they rejected it. Maybe you'll have more luck this time :)

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