Re: That depends... (Was: Regarding assignment to struct)

On 03.05.2025 07:11, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

 
Expanding on this point, C++ goes to town with pass-by-value interfaces
involving objects. For instance the std::basic_string template allows
C++ programs to treat dynamic strings as just values to be tossed
around:
 
   std::string path_combine(std::string dir, std::string name)
   {
      return dir + "/" + name;
   }

Hmm.. - my C++ days were long ago but I seem to recall that the
suggestion for passing non-trivial objects by-value was that they
should instead be passed by 'const &' (as a "quasi-by-value") for
performance reasons.

C++ experience informs us that you can get away with doing this
with PODs (plain old datatypes---structs with no constructors
or destructors) only to a point. But in C, that's all you have.
 
[...]

Janis