Quote Originally Posted by NMTop40
Maybe someone who knows the standard well can answer this question.
Well, I'm no standards wiz, but I am fairly certain that a temporary should only stay alive as long as the expression it's in (i.e. to the ; after it). (EDIT: Unless it's bound to a const reference) If you want an object to live longer than that, you have to name it. To me that makes sense as you wouldn't need the object to stay alive any longer, as you can't access it. (Though your lock example would be a good use for something like that.)