Question

Can I do this:

static Toggle GetAutoUpdatedToggle(DWORD key, bool initialState = false)
{
    Toggle tempToggle(key, initialState);
    autoUpdateToggles.push_back(tempToggle); //This is static member - std::vector<Toggle>
    return tempToggle;
}

And I’m also using it later like that:

void Toggle::UpdateAllFromFactory() //This is static function
{
    for each (Toggle toggle in autoUpdateToggles)
    {
        toggle.Update();
    }
}

Is this good way of doing it?

---

UPDATE 1 – After your suggestoins:

static Toggle* GetAutoUpdatedToggle(DWORD key, bool initialState = false)
{
    Toggle *pToggle = new Toggle(key, initialState);
    m_autoUpdateToggles.push_back(pToggle);
    return pToggle;
}

void Toggle::UpdateAllFromFactory()
{
    for (std::vector<Toggle*>::iterator it = m_autoUpdateToggles.begin(); it < m_autoUpdateToggles.end(); it++)
    {
        (*it)->Update();
    }
}

Answer 1

No, this is not a good way of doing it, because you pass around copies of Toggle:

• GetAutoUpdatedToggle returns a copy of the Toggle that it just pushed into the vector. It’s not in itself a wrong thing to do, but any manipulations the caller may do on the returned toggle would not be reflected on the one you pushed onto the vector
• The for loop goes through elements of the vector, creating a copy for use inside the loop body. Unless the Toggle itself has a pointer-like semantic, the Update() action would not be reflected on Toggle objects inside the vector.

To fix this issue, make GetAutoUpdatedToggle return a reference to the Toggle object that it just pushed onto the vector, and use a vector<Toggle>::iterator object to iterate through the stored toggles. This would let you operate on the actual objects, rather than on their copies.