Are structure members of structure passed by reference, passed ONLY by value? - c++

Question

My module tries to do things along the lines of the following program: sub-functions try to modify a structure's elements and give it back to the function to whom the structure is passed by reference.
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
struct a
{
int val1;
vector<int> vec1;
};
struct a* foo();
void anotherfunc(struct a &input);
int main()
{
struct a *foo_out;
foo_out = foo();
cout<< "Foo out int val: "<< foo_out->val1<<"\n";
cout<< "Foo out vector size: "<< foo_out->vec1.size()<< "\n";
cout<< "Foo out vector value1: "<< foo_out->vec1.at(0)<< "\n";
cout<< "Foo out vector value2: "<< foo_out->vec1.at(1)<< "\n";
return 0;
}
struct a *foo()
{
struct a input;
input.val1=729;
anotherfunc(input);
return &input;
}
void anotherfunc(struct a &input)
{
input.vec1.push_back(100);
input.vec1.push_back(1000);
input.vec1.push_back(1024);
input.vec1.push_back(3452);
cout<< "Anotherfunc():input vector value1: "<< input.vec1.at(0)<< "\n";
cout<< "Anotherfunc():input vector value2: "<< input.vec1.at(1)<< "\n";
cout<< "Anotherfunc():input int val: "<< input.val1<< "\n";
}
I am expecting the main function to contain the modified integer value in structure (729), and also the vector values (100,10000,1024 and 3452). On the contrary, main has none of these values, and on g++, the program shows a strange behaviour: main() shows that there are 4 elements in the vector inside structure, but when trying to print the values, segfaults.
After some more thought, I assume my question is : "Are structure members of structure passed by reference, passed ONLY by value ?" Should I not expect that vector to have the values set by functions to whom the entire structure is passed by reference? Kindly help.
Vijay

Answer 1

struct a *foo()
{
struct a input;
input.val1=729;
anotherfunc(input);
return &input;
}
You are returning pointer on the local object (it will be destroyed on exit from function), so, there is dangling pointer here and your program has undefined behaviour.

Answer 2

As ForeEveR says, the pointer you are returning is pointing to memory which is no longer guaranteed to contain a valid object. If you want this behavior, allocate input on the heap as follows:
a * foo ()
{
a * input = new input;
input->val1 = 729;
anotherfunc (*input);
return input;
}
Now it is the responsibility of whoever calls foo to free this memory, for example
{
a * foo_out = foo();
// do stuff with foo_out
delete foo_out; foo_out = 0;
}
At some point you will realize that keeping track of who allocated which objects is tedious, when this happens you should look up "smart pointers".

Answer 3

First of all, there is nothing terribly magical about "structures" in C++ — you should treat them like any other type. In particular, you don't need to write the keyword struct everywhere.
So here's your code in more idiomatic C++ (also re-ordered to avoid those wasteful pre-declarations):
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
struct a
{
int val1;
vector<int> vec1;
};
void bar(a& input)
{
input.vec1.push_back(100);
input.vec1.push_back(1000);
input.vec1.push_back(1024);
input.vec1.push_back(3452);
cout << "bar():input vector value1: " << input.vec1.at(0) << "\n";
cout << "bar():input vector value2: " << input.vec1.at(1) << "\n";
cout << "bar():input int val: " << input.val1 << "\n";
}
a* foo()
{
a input;
input.val1=729;
bar(input);
return &input;
}
int main()
{
a* foo_out = foo();
cout << "Foo out int val: " << foo_out->val1 << "\n";
cout << "Foo out vector size: " << foo_out->vec1.size() << "\n";
cout << "Foo out vector value1: " << foo_out->vec1.at(0) << "\n";
cout << "Foo out vector value2: " << foo_out->vec1.at(1) << "\n";
}
Now, as others have pointed out, foo() is broken in that it returns a pointer to a local object.
Why all the pointer trickery? If you're worried about copying that vector, then you can dynamically-allocate the a object and use a shared pointer implementation to manage that memory for you:
void bar(shared_ptr<a> input)
{
input->vec1.push_back(100);
input->vec1.push_back(1000);
input->vec1.push_back(1024);
input->vec1.push_back(3452);
cout << "bar():input vector value1: " << input->vec1.at(0) << "\n";
cout << "bar():input vector value2: " << input->vec1.at(1) << "\n";
cout << "bar():input int val: " << input->val1 << "\n";
}
shared_ptr<a> foo()
{
shared_ptr<a> input(new a);
input->val1 = 729;
bar(input);
return input;
}
Otherwise, just pass it around by value.