tidy - bugprone-misleading-setter-of-reference — Extra Clang Tools 22.0.0git documentation (original) (raw)

Finds setter-like member functions that take a pointer parameter and set a reference member of the same class with the pointed value.

The check detects member functions that take a single pointer parameter, and contain a single expression statement that dereferences the parameter and assigns the result to a data member with a reference type.

The fact that a setter function takes a pointer might cause the belief that an internal reference (if it would be a pointer) is changed instead of the pointed-to (or referenced) value.

Example:

class MyClass { int &InternalRef; // non-const reference member public: MyClass(int &Value) : InternalRef(Value) {}

// Warning: This setter could lead to unintended behaviour. void setRef(int *Value) { InternalRef = *Value; // This assigns to the referenced value, not changing what InternalRef references. } };

int main() { int Value1 = 42; int Value2 = 100; MyClass X(Value1);

// This might look like it changes what InternalRef references to, // but it actually modifies Value1 to be 100. X.setRef(&Value2); }

Possible fixes:

• Change the parameter type of the “set” function to non-pointer type (for example, a const reference).
• Change the type of the member variable to a pointer and in the “set” function assign a value to the pointer (without dereference).