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Returning a pointer to a vector element in c++

Asked 2009-03-13T08:54:56.760
77

I have a vector of myObjects in global scope. I have a method which uses a std::vector<myObject>::const_iterator to traverse the vector, and doing some comparisons to find a specific element. Once I have found the required element, I want to be able to return a pointer to it (the vector exists in global scope).

If I return &iterator, am I returning the address of the iterator or the address of what the iterator is pointing to?

Do I need to cast the const_iterator back to a myObject, then return the address of that?

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As long as your vector remains in global scope you can return:

&(*iterator)

I'll caution you that this is pretty dangerous in general. If your vector is ever moved out of global scope and is destructed, any pointers to myObject become invalid. If you're writing these functions as part of a larger project, returning a non-const pointer could lead someone to delete the return value. This will have undefined, and catastrophic, effects on the application.

I'd rewrite this as:

myObject myFunction(const vector<myObject>& objects)
{
    // find the object in question and return a copy
    return *iterator;
}

If you need to modify the returned myObject, store your values as pointers and allocate them on the heap:

myObject* myFunction(const vector<myObject*>& objects)
{
    return *iterator;
}

That way you have control over when they're destructed.

Something like this will break your app:

g_vector<tmpClass> myVector;

    tmpClass t;
    t.i = 30;
    myVector.push_back(t);

    // my function returns a pointer to a value in myVector
    std::auto_ptr<tmpClass> t2(myFunction());
answered 2009-03-13T12:34:01.413

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