Question

I am reading the “Learn C the Hard Way” book and found a code snippet there that looks like this (the below is my code, but the structure of the program is the same):

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

class Person {
private:
    string name;
    int age;
public:
Person(string name, int age) {;
        this->name = name;
        this->age = age;
    }


~Person() {
    }
};

// When whould I do like this?
class Person *Create_person(string name, int age) {
    class Person *person = new Person(name, age);
    return person;
};    

int main() {
    Person *person = Create_person("John", 30);
}

Look especially at

class Person *Create_person(string name, int age) {
        class Person *person = new Person(name, age);
        return person;
    };

What kind of function is that? Why would I call it like that and not just Person *person = new Person?
Is it a short form for

class Person {
public:
   Person *Create_person(string name, int age){
        Person *person = new Person(name, age);
        return person;
   }
}

?

Answer 1

There is nothing special about that function. class Person and Person are exactly the same type.

class Person *Create_person(string name, int age) {
    class Person *person = new Person(name, age);
    return person;
};

and

Person *Create_person(string name, int age) {
    Person *person = new Person(name, age);
    return person;
};

mean the same thing. The function seems pointless anyway, you can just call new Person(name, age) directly, as you figured already.