Is writing this *(&x) in my code any different than x? Or does the compiler make them the same thing?
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Rorschach
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What is `x`? Without knowing that your question doesn't make any sense. – D Drmmr Apr 18 '14 at 06:29
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@DDrmmr `x` is just a variable... – Rorschach Apr 18 '14 at 06:31
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Well in C we have the following wording in the standard [If the operand is the result of a unary * operator, neither that operator nor the & operator is evaluated and the result is as if both were omitted](http://stackoverflow.com/a/21247407/1708801) as far as I know we don't equivalent wording in C++. – Shafik Yaghmour Apr 18 '14 at 06:36
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GCC at least appears to generate the same instructions for both *(&x) and just x assuming that whatever type x is doesn't overload the & and * operators.
PomfCaster
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You can use the `-S` flag for GCC, there are also a few websites that are able to do it like http://assembly.ynh.io/ – PomfCaster Apr 18 '14 at 06:31
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It certainly doesn't help readability.
As long as there's no operator overloading going on it is almost certain that the compiler would generate identical code for the two. Compile to assembly (-S in gcc) to see for yourself.
NPE
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Is writing this *(&x) in my code any different than x?
They might mean different thing if * or/and & are overloaded operators, else *(&x) and x mean the same thing, in which case it decreases readability and so you wouldn't like to write that. See this similar topic:
Hope that helps.
