Should accessors return values or constant references?

Question

Suppose I have a class Foo with a std::string member str. What should get_str return?

std::string Foo::ge         


        

Answer 1

Generally you should return PODs by value (e.g, int, short, char, long etc,) and a const reference for more complex types:

int getData() const;
short getMoreData() const;
const std::string& getName() const;
const ComplexObject& getComplexData() const;