@item -Wuninitialized
@opindex Wuninitialized
@opindex Wno-uninitialized
-Warn if an automatic variable is used without first being initialized.
-In C++, warn if a non-static reference or non-static @code{const}
-member appears in a class without constructors.
+Warn if an object with automatic or allocated storage duration is used
+without having been initialized. In C++, also warn if a non-static
+reference or non-static @code{const} member appears in a class without
+constructors.
+
+In addition, passing a pointer (or in C++, a reference) to an uninitialized
+object to a @code{const}-qualified argument of a built-in function known to
+read the object is also diagnosed by this warning.
+(@option{-Wmaybe-uninitialized} is issued for ordinary functions.)
If you want to warn about code that uses the uninitialized value of the
variable in its own initializer, use the @option{-Winit-self} option.
@item -Wmaybe-uninitialized
@opindex Wmaybe-uninitialized
@opindex Wno-maybe-uninitialized
-For an automatic (i.e.@: local) variable, if there exists a path from the
-function entry to a use of the variable that is initialized, but there exist
-some other paths for which the variable is not initialized, the compiler
-emits a warning if it cannot prove the uninitialized paths are not
-executed at run time.
+For an object with automatic or allocated storage duration, if there exists
+a path from the function entry to a use of the object that is initialized,
+but there exist some other paths for which the object is not initialized,
+the compiler emits a warning if it cannot prove the uninitialized paths
+are not executed at run time.
+
+In addition, passing a pointer (or in C++, a reference) to an uninitialized
+object to a @code{const}-qualified function argument is also diagnosed by
+this warning. (@option{-Wuninitialized} is issued for built-in functions
+known to read the object.) Annotating the function with attribute
+@code{access (none)} indicates that the argument isn't used to access
+the object and avoids the warning (@pxref{Common Function Attributes}).
These warnings are only possible in optimizing compilation, because otherwise
GCC does not keep track of the state of variables.