Change request #1055
Review coding rule: "Output arguments should be passed as pointers"
| Status: | New | Start date: | 01/04/2014 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priority: | Low | Due date: | ||
| Assigned To: |  Knödlseder Jürgen | % Done: | 0% | |
| Category: | - | |||
| Target version: | - | |||
| Duration: |
Description
The GammaLib Coding and design document contains this coding rule:
Output arguments should be passed as pointers.
This is a common coding rule that can e.g. also be found here:
http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.xml?showone=Reference_Arguments#Reference_Arguments
I noticed that GModel::write(GXmlElement& xml) and dozens of other GXXX::write() methods violate this rule, because they passes an output argument by reference instead of as a pointer:
http://gammalib.sourceforge.net/doxygen/classGModel.html#ab2692db0659a2b39a3a185fe62e72e27
Does this “only” need to be cleaned up or is there a reason for this (e.g. the Python interface)?
I did not look around to see whether there are other cases where output arguments are passed by non-const references instead of by pointer.
Recurrence
No recurrence.
History
#1
Updated by Knödlseder Jürgen over 10 years ago
The examples you mention are those where the arguments are input and output. For example, the write methods typically appends something to an existing object, but they do not create the object from scratch. When I was writing this rule I was more thinking about “pure” output arguments, hence arguments where the method fully sets the object.