Learning C++: returning references AND getting around slicing

Question

I\'m having a devil of a time understanding references. Consider the following code:

class Animal
{
public:
    virtual void makeSound() {cout << \"rawr\"         


        

Answer 1

(I'm ignoring your problems with dynamic memory going into references causing memory leaks... )

Your splitting problems go away when Animal is an abstract base class. That means it has at least one pure virtual method and cannot be directly instantiated. The following becomes a compiler error:

Animal a = rFunc();   // a cannot be directly instantiated
                      // spliting prevented by compiler!

but the compiler allows:

Animal* a = pFunc();  // polymorphism maintained!
Animal& a = rFunc();  // polymorphism maintained!

Thus the compiler saves the day!