"Use of deleted function" when calling `std::unique_ptr` move constructor?

Question

I'm facing a compilation issue when defining a function that takes a move reference to a std::unique_ptr object.

#include <memory>

class foo {
 public:
    foo() { /* */ };
};

void function(foo&& arg) {
    foo bar(arg);
}

void function2(std::unique_ptr<foo>&& arg){
    std::unique_ptr<foo> foo(arg);
}


int main(int argc, char const *argv[]) {
    foo A;
    function(foo());
    function2(std::unique_ptr<foo>(new foo));
    return 0;
}

which leads to:

test.cpp: In function ‘void function2(std::unique_ptr<foo>&&)’:
test.cpp:16:30: error: use of deleted function ‘std::unique_ptr<_Tp, _Dp>::unique_ptr(const std::unique_ptr<_Tp, _Dp>&) [with _Tp = foo; _Dp = std::default_delete<foo>]’
   16 |  std::unique_ptr<foo> foo(arg);
      |                              ^
In file included from /usr/include/c++/9.3.0/memory:80,
                 from test.cpp:1:
/usr/include/c++/9.3.0/bits/unique_ptr.h:414:7: note: declared here
  414 |       unique_ptr(const unique_ptr&) = delete;

I've tried to replicate it by passing a reference to a custom class, but as expected it causes no issue as the default move constructor is implicitly declared by the compiler. Why does it happen then with std::unique_ptr? There is a default move constructor for std::unique_ptr, so what am I missing?

Answer 1

For safety reasons, some restrictions are imposed. A named variable will never be considered to be an rvalue even if it is declared as such. To get an rvalue, the function template std::move() should be used. Rvalue references can also be modified only under certain circumstances, being intended to be used primarily with move constructors.

void function2(std::unique_ptr<foo>&& arg) {
    std::unique_ptr<foo> foo(std::move(arg));
}