Returning a reference to local function parameters

[Steve Kreyer <steve dot kreyer at web dot de>]

Hi,

does anyone know why the following peace of code compiles without warning?:

int& max(int x, int y)
{
    return (x < y)? y: x;
}

I would expect a warning message like "warning: reference to local
variable... returned", but there isn't any warning.
I can only guess that it is a runtime decision which reference to which
variable should be returned. But why can't gcc take care of it and
doesn't print a warning message like the above one?

Thanks in advance,
Steve

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