Instance of a class returning itself

Well, how do I make a function of class return the class it was called for?
For some reason I have a feeling "return self;" won't work...

If you are returning a pointer to the instance, then return this, else if just an object return *this

you can return a different instance of a class easily. i have a graph class with a function which returns a graph object, different from the graph that was calling it. Is that what you mean?

For member functions of a class, use return *this;

For free functions, like operators, return whichever argument is valid for the next statement.