Should useless type qualifiers on return types be used, for clarity?

Question

Our static analysis tool complains about a \"useless type qualifier on return type\" when we have prototypes in header files such as:

const int foo();
         


        

Answer 1

const int foo() is very different from const char* foo(). const char* foo() returns an array (usually a string) whose content is not allowed to change. Think about the difference between:

 const char* a = "Hello World";

and

const int b = 1;

a is still a variable and can be assigned to other strings that can't change whereas b is not a variable. So

const char* foo();
const char* a = "Hello World\n";
a = foo();

is allowed but

const int bar();
const int b = 0;
b = bar();

is not allowed, even with the const declaration of bar().