Mirrors/cppbestpractices
1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://github.com/cpp-best-practices/cppbestpractices.git synced 2025-12-17 11:14:35 +03:00
Code Issues Actions Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Update notes on return types

Browse Source
This commit is contained in:
Jason Turner
2015-08-28 12:07:06 -06:00
parent 5e2eead0b6
commit d8ea5adc67
1 changed files with 9 additions and 3 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

12
04-Considering_Safety.md
View File

@@ -24,11 +24,17 @@ public:
```
### Consider Return By Value for Mutable Data, `const &` for Immutable
### Carefully Consider Your Return Types
You don't want to have to pay a cost for copying the data when you don't need to, but you also don't want to have to safely return data in a threading scenario.
* Getters
* Returning by `&` or `const &` can have significant performance savings when the normal use of the returned value is for observation
* Returning by value is better for thread safety and if the normal use of the returned value is to make a copy anyhow, there's no performance lost
* If your API uses covariant return types, you must return by `&` or `*`
* Temporaries and local values
* Always return by value.
See also this discussion for more information: https://github.com/lefticus/cppbestpractices/issues/21
references: https://github.com/lefticus/cppbestpractices/issues/21 https://twitter.com/lefticus/status/635943577328095232
### Do not pass and return simple types by const ref