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

In theory, you could end up with a dangling reference if you do something awful like:

MyClass *myObject = new MyClass;
MyClass & dangling = myObject->setMember1("string");
delete myObject;
dangling.setMember2(yrParam);

So be aware of that.