Method Call Chaining returning a pointer vs a reference

Question

I have a Text class that has certain methods that return a pointer to itself  allowing calls to be chained    The reason being I merely like how the chaining looks and feels  honestly    My question is  which is generally better in practice  in terms of safety   versatility   performance     Returning and using References   Or Returning and using Pointers   An example of both  starting with the Pointer version   class Text  public      Text   position int x  int y              do stuff            return this            Text   write const char   string       Text   newline        Text   bold bool toggle       Text   etc                textInstance position 0  0 - gt write  writing an   - gt bold true - gt write  EXAMPLE    textInstance position 20  100             - gt write  and writing one across              - gt newline              - gt write  multiple lines of code      versus the Reference version   class Text  public      Text  amp  position int x  int y              do stuff            return  this            Text  amp  write const char   string       Text  amp  newline        Text  amp  bold bool toggle       Text  amp  etc                textInstance position 0  0  write  writing an    bold true  write  EXAMPLE    textInstance position 20  100               write  and writing one across                newline                write  multiple lines of code

User · Answer

Very interesting question   I don t see any difference w r t safety or versatility  since you can do the same thing with pointer or reference  I also don t think there is any visible difference in performance since references are implemented by pointers   But I think using reference is better because it is consistent with the standard library  For example  chaining in iostream is done by reference rather than pointer

User · Answer

The difference between pointers and references is quite simple  a pointer can be null  a reference can not   Examine your API  if it makes sense for null to be able to be returned  possibly to indicate an error  use a pointer  otherwise use a reference  If you do use a pointer  you should add checks to see if it s null  and such checks may slow down your code    Here it looks like references are more appropriate

User · Answer

Since nullptr is never going to be returned  I recommend the reference approach  It more accurately represents how the return value will be used

User · Answer

It s canonical to use references for this  precedence  ostream  operator lt  lt   Pointers and references here are  for all ordinary purposes  the same speed size safety

[c++] Method Call Chaining; returning a pointer vs a reference?

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