Question

Just a C++ newbie question.
I have a class like

class Person
{
  private:
  std::string m_name;
};

Is it better to design getter as

std::string name() const;

so m_name will be copied each time name() is called or as

const std::string& name() const;

so caller can make his own copy, if he wants.

Answer 1

In general, I would go with the const& version, since it avoids unnecessary copying.

However, if you’re making a class that’s intended to be accessed by multiple threads simultaneously, returning a copy is cleaner and more reliable.