Grabbing the return value before it's erased.

Originally Posted by vart

I suppose you are allocating memory in your push_xxx functions

For such classes you have to provide copy constructors

If you don't - the compiler creates one for you - just using member by member assignments...

In this case all pointers point to the same memory as the original class instance,
And after the original class is destroyed - your copy has dangling pointer here and there...

With your function you invoke copy-constructor in the return statement from the the local variable to the temp-variable being returned...

After that the operator = is invoked to copy values from the temp variable to the newly created var in the calling function. It means this operator also should be provided

I think that's the problem. So I'll have to find another way around it.

Originally Posted by vart

I suppose you are allocating memory in your push_xxx functions

For such classes you have to provide copy constructors

If you don't - the compiler creates one for you - just using member by member assignments...

In this case all pointers point to the same memory as the original class instance,
And after the original class is destroyed - your copy has dangling pointer here and there...

Spot on, I was just trying to put that into words myself

You can't declare something on the stack then expect the code to just know that you've extended it onto the heap when you go and pass it by value :P

Personally I'd declare the list on the heap and pass a pointer. You're just creating overhead by copying everything constantly anyway... I suppose that depends on the purpose behind your program to some extent though.

Originally Posted by hardi

I think that's the problem. So I'll have to find another way around it.

Create a copy constructor that handles the heap-based allocations you made with new() or keep it all on the heap and pass a pointer around.

Originally Posted by hardi

I think that's the problem. So I'll have to find another way around it.

Note that for classes using dynamic memory allocation directly you should always provide copyConstructor and operator =
If you think you don't need them and don't want to implement - a good practice is to create empty functions for them and make them private.

In this case if you still use one of the above by mistake - compiler will note you