Efficient C++ Performance Programming Techniques

The Mechanics of Return-by-Value

The Complex class implements a representation for complex numbers:

class Complex
{
    // Complex addition operator
    friend Complex operator+(const Complex&, const Complex&);
public:
    // Default constructor.
    // Value defaults to 0 unless otherwise specified.
    Complex (double r = 0.0, double i = 0.0) : real (r),  imag (i) {}

    // Copy constructor
    Complex (const Complex& c) : real (c.real), imag (c.imag) {}

    // Assignment operator
    Complex& operator= (const Complex& c);

    ~Complex() {}
private:
    double real;
    double imag;
};

The addition operator returns a Complex object by value, as in:

 Complex operator+ (const Complex& a, const Complex& b) { Complex retVal; retVal.real = a.real + b.real; retVal.imag = a.imag + b.imag; return ...