Re: returning references

From:

James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Fri, 4 Jan 2008 13:40:16 -0800 (PST)

Message-ID:

<d53b5e15-a016-4f9e-83e4-a045d82ea1ce@s12g2000prg.googlegroups.com>

On Jan 4, 8:36 pm, "Daniel T." <danie...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Changing a function from returning const-reference to returning const
object can't break any existing clients.

IE. if I have this:

class Object {
public:
const Foo& getFoo() const;
};

and later, I don't want to store a Foo, I can easily change
the class to:

class Object {
public:
const Foo getFoo() const; // I could even dump the first const
};

and clients will not be affected. As I understand it, the two
returns are as interchangeable as if they were function
parameters.

Unless, of course, the type doesn't support copy. Or if the
client takes the address of the return, and later uses it. Or
any number of other cases as well. The lifetime of the object
is *not* the same.

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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