Return a “NULL” object if search result not found

Question

I\'m pretty new to C++ so I tend to design with a lot of Java-isms while I\'m learning. Anyway, in Java, if I had class with a \'search\' method that would return an object

Answer 1

The reason that you can't return NULL here is because you've declared your return type as Attr&. The trailing & makes the return value a "reference", which is basically a guaranteed-not-to-be-null pointer to an existing object. If you want to be able to return null, change Attr& to Attr*.