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    CWG Issue 809</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="809"></A><H4>809.
  
Deprecation of the <TT>register</TT> keyword
</H4>
<B>Section: </B>9.2.2&#160; [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.stc">dcl.stc</A>]
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Status: </B>CD2
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Submitter: </B>UK
 &#160;&#160;&#160;

 <B>Date: </B>3 March, 2009<BR><BR>


<A href="http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2010/n3086.html#UK86">N2800 comment
  UK&#160;86<BR></A>

<P>[Voted into WP at October, 2009 meeting.]</P>

<P>
The <TT>register</TT>
keyword serves very little function, offering no more than
a hint that a note says is typically ignored. It should be
deprecated in this version of the standard, freeing the
reserved name up for use in a future standard, much like
<TT>auto</TT> has been re-used this time around for being similarly
useless.
</P>

<P><B>Notes from the March, 2009 meeting:</B></P>

<P>The consensus of the CWG was in favor of deprecating
<TT>register</TT>.</P>

<P><B>Proposed resolution (September, 2009):</B></P>

<OL>
<LI><P>Change 9.2.2 [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.stc#3">dcl.stc</A>] paragraph 3 as follows:</P></LI>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

A <TT>register</TT> specifier is a hint to the implementation that the
object so declared will be heavily used. [<I>Note:</I> the hint can be
ignored and in most implementations it will be ignored if the address
of the object is taken. <INS>This use is deprecated (see
[depr.register]).</INS> &#8212;<I>end note</I>]

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<LI><P>Add a new section following _N3000_.D.4 [<A href="https://wg21.link/depr.string">depr.string</A>]:</P></LI>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

<P><INS>register keyword  [depr.register]</INS></P>

<P><INS>The use of the <TT>register</TT> keyword as a
<I>storage-class-specifier</I> is deprecated (see 9.2.2 [<A href="https://wg21.link/dcl.stc">dcl.stc</A>]).</INS></P>

</BLOCKQUOTE>

</OL>

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