Thread: Is what I think is gonna happen gonna happen

I'm trying to get rid of some inefficiencies in my code. The current (simplified) version is this:

Code:

class matrix {
double data*;

matrix& operator=(const matrix& m) {
(for each element of m.data) {
data[i] = m.data[i];}
}

matrix getminor(range_of_minor) {
matrix m;
copy_all_elements_of_this_in_range_to_m;
return m;
}
}

Then I would do this:

Code:

matrix big_matrix, smaller_matrix;
smaller_matrix = big_matrix.getminor(range_of_minor);

Am I copying matrices twice in the above code? Once when matrix::getminor creates a minor matrix and once when it assigns it to another one? Would it be better if I rewrote the function so that smaller_matrix is passed by reference to matrix::getminor and the values of data are copied directly?