Question

I’m new and a little ignorant in C++ and I encounter a C++ code that used a singleton pattern,

class CFoo
{
 public:
   static CFoo& getInstance()
   {
     static CFoo self;
     return self;
   }

 private:
   CFoo(){}
   ~CFoo(){}
};

I am just confused why return a static reference? Is this a valid code? Why the programmer didn’t use a pointer?

Answer 1

Why use a pointer? A reference is simple and matches what I want to do: alias an object, not point to it. The static doesn’t apply to the reference, it applies to the function, making it callable without an instance.

(Even better, why use a singleton?)