va_start

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution support library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Utilities library

Language support Type support (basic types, RTTI) Library feature-test macros (C++20) Dynamic memory management Program utilities Coroutine support (C++20) Variadic functions is_constant_evaluated (C++20) is_within_lifetime (C++26) initializer_list (C++11) source_location (C++20) Three-way comparison three_way_comparablethree_way_comparable_with (C++20)(C++20) strong_ordering (C++20) weak_ordering (C++20) partial_ordering (C++20) common_comparison_category (C++20) compare_three_way_result (C++20) compare_three_way (C++20) strong_order (C++20) weak_order (C++20) partial_order (C++20) compare_strong_order_fallback (C++20) compare_weak_order_fallback (C++20) compare_partial_order_fallback (C++20)   is_eqis_ltis_lteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)   is_neqis_gtis_gteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)

General utilities Date and time Function objects Formatting library (C++20)   bitset hash (C++11) Relational operators (deprecated in C++20) rel_ops::operator!=rel_ops::operator>    rel_ops::operator<=rel_ops::operator>= Integer comparison functions cmp_equalcmp_lesscmp_less_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)   cmp_not_equalcmp_greatercmp_greater_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20) in_range (C++20) Swap and type operations swap ranges::swap (C++20) exchange (C++14) declval (C++11) to_underlying (C++23) forward (C++11) forward_like (C++23) move (C++11) move_if_noexcept (C++11) as_const (C++17) Common vocabulary types pair tuple (C++11) optional (C++17) any (C++17) variant (C++17) tuple_size (C++11) tuple_element (C++11) apply (C++17) make_from_tuple (C++17) expected (C++23) Elementary string conversions to_chars (C++17) from_chars (C++17) chars_format (C++17) to_chars_result (C++17) from_chars_result (C++17)

 

Variadic functions

va_start

va_arg

va_copy (C++11)

va_end

va_list

 

Defined in header <cstdarg>
void va_start( std::va_list ap, parm_n );

The va_start macro enables access to the variable arguments following the named argument parm_n.

va_start should be invoked with an instance to a valid va_list object ap before any calls to va_arg.

If the parm_n is a pack expansion or an entity resulting from a lambda capture, the program is ill-formed, no diagnostic required.

(since C++11)

If parm_n is declared with reference type or with a type not compatible with the type that results from default argument promotions, the behavior is undefined.

Parameters

ap	-	an instance of the va_list type
parm_n	-	the named parameter preceding the first variable parameter

Expanded value

(none)

Notes

va_start is required to support parm_n with overloaded operator&.

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdarg>
 
int add_nums(int count, ...) 
{
    int result = 0;
    std::va_list args;
    va_start(args, count);
    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
        result += va_arg(args, int);
    }
    va_end(args);
    return result;
}
 
int main() 
{
    std::cout << add_nums(4, 25, 25, 50, 50) << '\n';
}

Output:

150

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

DR	Applied to	Behavior as published	Correct behavior
CWG 273	C++98	va_start may not work if unary operator& is overloaded	required to work correctly even if operator& is overloaded

See also

va_arg	accesses the next variadic function argument (function macro)
va_end	ends traversal of the variadic function arguments (function macro)
C documentation for va_start