c++ const member function that returns a const pointer.. But what type of const is the returned pointer?

Question

I apologize if this has been asked, but how do I create a member function in c++ that returns a pointer in the following scenerios: 1. The returned pointer is constant, but

Answer 1

I don't know what book you have read, but if you mark a method const it means that this will be of type const MyClass* instead of MyClass*, which in its turn means that you cannot change nonstatic data members that are not declared mutable, nor can you call any non-const methods on this.

Now for the return value.

1 . int * const func () const

The function is constant, and the returned pointer is constant but the 'junk inside' can be modified. However, I see no point in returning a const pointer because the ultimate function call will be an rvalue, and rvalues of non-class type cannot be const, meaning that const will be ignored anyway

2 . const int* func () const

This is a useful thing. The "junk inside" cannot be modified

3 . const int * const func() const

semantically almost the same as 2, due to reasons in 1.

HTH