Question

So, as we’re all hopefully aware, in Object-oriented programming when the occasion comes when you need somehow access an instance of a class in another class’s method, you turn to passing that instance through arguments.

I’m curious, what’s the difference in terms of good practice / less prone to breaking things when it comes to either passing an Object, or a Pointer to that object?

Answer 1

Get into the habit of passing objects by reference.

void DoStuff(const vector<int>& values)

If you need to modify the original object, omit the const qualifier.

void DoStuff(vector<int>& values)

If you want to be able to accept an empty/nothing answer, pass it by pointer.

void DoStuff(vector<int>* values)

If you want to do stuff to a local copy, pass it by value.

void DoStuff(vector<int> values)

Problems will only really pop up when you introduce tons of concurrency. By that time, you will know enough to know when to not use certain passing techniques.