Returning *this in member functions

Question

I recently used a library that allows the following type of syntax:

MyClass myObject;
myObject
    .setMember1(\"string value\")
    .setMember2(4.0f)
    .s         


        

Answer 1

It's called a fluent api. It's not bad practice, just a different style of programming.

The biggest drawbacks (IMO) would be that since you are returning a reference to yourself, you can't return anything else and it can be difficult to debug fluent statements since they are seen by the compiler as one giant "line" of code.