Re: How to implement this function so that the vector can be passed back to the calling function?

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:02:16 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<2f51ba66-529f-470b-bb0e-f78ee829bad5@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>
On Mar 13, 7:09 pm, Kai-Uwe Bux <jkherci...@gmx.net> wrote:

xz wrote:

I wrote a function which looks like:

bool Xxx::findShortestPath(int xS, int yS, int xT, int yT,
vector<Vertex*> path) {
...
}

It meant to find a path, save the path in vector<Vertex*> path, and
pass the path back to the calling function.

And in some other function (say, main()), I called this function like:

int main() {
...
vector<Vertex*> path;
xxx.findShortestPath(0, 0, 9, 9, path);
// then print out the path
}

However, I just noticed that it failed to passed the path to the
main() function. That is, in the function findShortestPath(...), the
data has been loaded into *path*, but when it goes back to main(), all
data is lost.


Make the signature:

 bool Xxx::findShortestPath(int xS, int yS, int xT, int yT,
  vector<Vertex*> & path);
                 ^^^


=46rom a purely conceptual point of view, something like:

    Fallible< std::vector< Vertex* > >
    Xxx::findShortestPath( ... ) ;

would be better. In practice, if you call the function a lot,
and the paths tend to be fairly large, the performance
implications may become an issue.

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