9 Declarations [dcl.dcl]

9.11 Attributes [dcl.attr]

9.11.9 Nodiscard attribute [dcl.attr.nodiscard]

1
#
The attribute-token nodiscard may be applied to the declarator-id in a function declaration or to the declaration of a class or enumeration.
It shall appear at most once in each attribute-list and no attribute-argument-clause shall be present.
2
#
[ Note
:
A nodiscard call is a function call expression that calls a function previously declared nodiscard, or whose return type is a possibly cv-qualified class or enumeration type marked nodiscard.
Appearance of a nodiscard call as a potentially-evaluated discarded-value expression is discouraged unless explicitly cast to void.
Implementations should issue a warning in such cases.
This is typically because discarding the return value of a nodiscard call has surprising consequences.
— end note
 ]
3
#
[ Example
: 
struct [[nodiscard]] error_info { /* ... */ };
error_info enable_missile_safety_mode();
void launch_missiles();
void test_missiles() {
  enable_missile_safety_mode(); // warning encouraged
  launch_missiles();
}
error_info &foo();
void f() { foo(); }             // warning not encouraged: not a nodiscard call, because neither
                                // the (reference) return type nor the function is declared nodiscard
— end example
 ]