auto from const std::vector<>&; object or reference?

Question

suppose we have an object with the following interface:

struct Node_t {
 ... const std::vector< something >& getChilds() const;
 } node;
         


        

Answer 1

It's an std::vector. If you want a reference, you can do this:

auto & childs = node->getChilds();

That will of course be a const reference.