Does return statement copy values

user_177931 0
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I am wondering about this because of scope issues. For example, consider the code

typedef struct {
    int x1;/*top*/
    int x2;/*bottom*/
    int id;
} subline_t;



subline_t subline(int x1, int x2, int id) {
    subline_t t = { x1, x2, id };
    return t;
}

int main(){
    subline_t line = subline(0,0,0); //is line garbage or isn't it? the reference
    //to subline_t t goes out of scope, so the only way this wouldn't be garbage
    //is if return copies
}

So my question is, will the return statement always copy? In this case it seems to work, so I am led to believe that return does copy. If it does copy, will it copy in every case?

return c++
11 Answers

I do not agree and NOT RECOMMEND to return vector to change values: Is much faster pass as reference:

void vectorial(vector <double> a, vector <double> b, vector <double> &c)
{
    c[0] = a[1] * b[2] - b[1] * a[2]; c[1] = -a[0] * b[2] + b[0] * a[2]; c[2] = a[0] * b[1] - b[0] * a[1];
}
//This is slow!!!:
vector <double> vectorial(vector <double> a, vector <double> b)
{
    vector <double> c{ a[1] * b[2] - b[1] * a[2], -a[0] * b[2] + b[0] * a[2], a[0] * b[1] - b[0] * a[1] };
    return c;
}

I tested on VS2015 with following results in release mode:

By reference:8.01 MOPs and returning vector: 5.09 MOPs 60% worse!

In debug mode things are much worse:

By reference:0.053 MOPS and return vector: 0.034 MOPs

user_36871440
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