Does return statement copy values

Question

I am wondering about this because of scope issues. For example, consider the code

typedef struct {
    int x1;/*top*/
    int x2;/*bottom*/
    int id;
} sub         


        

Answer 1

It will always return a copy.

If you want to avoid the performance hit of copying the object on return, you can declare a pointer, build an instance of the object using new, and return the pointer. In that case, the pointer will be copied, but the object won't be.