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    CWG Issue 2371</TITLE>
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<P><EM>This is an unofficial snapshot of the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21
  Core Issues List revision 118b.
  See http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/ for the official
  list.</EM></P>
<P>2025-09-28</P>
<HR>
<A NAME="2371"></A><H4>2371.
  
Use of the English term &#8220;attributes&#8221; is confusing
</H4>
<B>Section: </B>6.2&#160; [<A href="https://wg21.link/basic.def">basic.def</A>]
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Status: </B>CD5
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Submitter: </B>Gabriel Dos Reis
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Date: </B>2017-12-05<BR>


<P>[Adopted at the February, 2019 meeting as part of paper P1103R3.]</P>

<P>The English word &#8220;attributes&#8221; is used occasionally
in the Standard to refer to general characteristics rather than
to the constructs described by the <I>attribute</I> syntactic
nonterminal. For example, 6.2 [<A href="https://wg21.link/basic.def#1">basic.def</A>] paragraph 1
says,</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

A declaration (9.1 [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.pre">dcl.pre</A>]) may introduce
one or more names into a translation unit or redeclare names
introduced by previous declarations. If so, the declaration
specifies the interpretation and attributes of these names.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>A similar use occurs in 6.5 [<A href="https://wg21.link/basic.lookup">basic.lookup</A>] paragraph
1:</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

Only after name lookup, function overload resolution (if
applicable) and access checking have succeeded are the
attributes introduced by the name's declaration used further
in expression processing (Clause 7 [<A href="https://wg21.link/expr">expr</A>]).

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>These nonspecific uses of the term are potentially confusing
and should be replaced, possibly with a specification of which
&#8220;attributes&#8221; are intended.</P>

<P>Perhaps less confusing, although in a similar vein, is
11.4.10 [<A href="https://wg21.link/class.bit#1">class.bit</A>] paragraph 1:</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

The bit-field attribute is not part of the type of the class
member.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>The use of the term here should also be reconsidered.</P>

<P><B>Notes from the October, 2018 teleconference:</B></P>

<P>These points are addressed by further work on the modules TS.</P>

<BR><BR>
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