Reading this Wikipedia article pointed by one of the repliers to the following question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2323225/c-copy-constructor-temporaries-and-copy-semantics I came across this line Depending on the compiler, and the compiler's settings, the resulting program may display any of the following outputs: Doesn't this qualify for undefined behavior? I know the article says Depending on the compiler and settings but I just want to clear this.