http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=51270
--- Comment #6 from Michiel De Wilde <michiel_dewilde at agilent dot com> 2011-11-22 18:20:44 UTC --- Hi Jonathan, thanks for the quick analysis. I did not realize that "char * &" and "char const * &" are not reference-compatible, leading to a temporary being introduced when initializing a "char const * const &" reference from a "char * &". Therefore this is not a true gcc bug. It would be nice though to have a warning for this case, i.e. when only the different constnesses after pointer dereferencing are responsible for temporaries being created for const lvalue initializations from other lvalues. I understand this may be difficult. Improved tracking of the reference to the temporary would also be nice. Thanks, Michiel
