Question

i’m trying to come up with a concrete reasoning why to use a pointer over a reference
as a return type from a function ,

my reasoning is that if inadvertently a null value is returned to a reference type
it could not be checked , and could lead to run-time errors

  int& something(int j)
  {
      int* p = 0 ;  
      return *p;
  }

  void main()
  {
      int& i = something(5);
      i = 7;   // run-time error 
  }

if i had used a pointer i could check it and avoid the error
the pointer return value would act as a contract to that a value must be returned.

 void main()
 {
         int* i = something(5);
         if( i != null )
             *i = 7;
 }

any thoughts would be appreciated
again ,

what would you use and why
reference or pointer

thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You could use a pointer instead of a reference if:

• Null is a valid return value
• You dynamically constructed something in the function, and the recipient becomes the owner. (In this case, you might consider returning a smart pointer such as std::unique_ptr or boost::shared_ptr.)

Regardless, you would not want to return either a pointer or a reference to a local variable.