Re: What's the point of passing parameter by value (vs. const ref)
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Wow. That scares the heck out of me. Are there programming guidelines
that would help me avoid or spot such an error when coding?
Andrew Koenig wrote:
"Martin T." <0xCDCDCDCD@gmx.at> wrote in message
news:g4ferd$sji$1@registered.motzarella.org...
When writing new C++ code, what is the point of passing any (input)
parameter by value when passing by const reference will just work as
well?
One possibility is that you might be mistaken about whether it works just as
well.
Here's an example:
// Divide all the elements of a vector<double> by a constant
void vec_divide(vector<double>& v, const double& x)
{
for (vector<double>::iterator it = v.begin(); it != v.end(); ++it)
*it /= x;
}
Now consider what happens when you call
vector<double> v;
v.push_back(1.23);
v.push_back(4.56);
vec_divide(v, v[0]);
If you don't see the problem, try running it.
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