In interfaces, use raw pointers to denote individual objects (only)

Reason

Arrays are best represented by a container type (e.g., vector (owning)) or a span (non-owning). Such containers and views hold sufficient information to do range checking.

Example, bad

void f(int* p, int n)   // n is the number of elements in p[]
{
    // ...
    p[2] = 7;   // bad: subscript raw pointer
    // ...
}

The compiler does not read comments, and without reading other code you do not know whether p really points to n elements. Use a span instead.

Example

void g(int* p, int fmt)   // print *p using format #fmt
{
    // ... uses *p and p[0] only ...
}

Exception

C-style strings are passed as single pointers to a zero-terminated sequence of characters. Use zstring rather than char* to indicate that you rely on that convention.

Note

Many current uses of pointers to a single element could be references. However, where nullptr is a possible value, a reference might not be a reasonable alternative.

Enforcement

This rule would generate a huge number of false positives if applied to an older code base.

• Flag pointer arithmetic (including ++) on a pointer that is not part of a container, view, or iterator.
• Flag array names passed as simple pointers