On 3/19/06, Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Suppose there is a function f() which returns an integer and does not change > any value of the class it belongs to, should I declare it as: I don't understand what you mean here. > const int f(); By declaring a const return type you are promising that the original variable (inside the function's stack frame) will not be modified. Because you're returning it by value, it's copied so the original value could never be modified via the return value. This qualifier has not meaning for primitive builtin types. This is different for user-defined types: if a function returns a class object by value as const, the return value of that function cannot be an lvalue (that is, it cannot be assigned to or otherwise modified). > or > > int f() const; Marks a function as const allowing it to be called by const objects (btw, const objects can only call const member functions). This construct is usually found as part of member functions declarations, which are known to be immutable. You probably want to choose the latter one. \Steve - : send the line "unsubscribe linux-c-programming" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
