Re: Efficiency of returning big objects

["Alex R. Mosteo" <devnull@mailinator.com>]

Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:

> Alex R. Mosteo wrote:
>> So, what do you think? Is there some error in my reasoning or testbed?
> 
> I think so. The real questions should be, what are the timing (or
> storage; it's not clear if you're discussing time or space efficiency)

I'm more worried about time efficiency when copying large objects, as long
as the objects aren't that large to risk stack overflows. In any case, here
time efficiency is a side effect of less extra copies.

> requirements for this application? Does the clearest implementation
> (returning an object) meet those requirements? If not, is complicating
> the code to return aliases the only way to meet them? If not, does one
> of the other ways have less of an effect on clarity?

At least now I'm more informed to make these tradeoffs, instead of relying
in some compiler magic that isn't happening...