Class question - solved

[[praetorian]]

Why do I have to have these things that are marked in bold below in the code?

class keeper
{
private:
	int hours;
	int minutes;
public:
	keeper();
	keeper(int s, int p);
	void addKeeper(int, int);
	void writeKeeper(keeper &k);
	keeper getKeeper(keeper &h, char *name);	keeper operator+(const keeper &k) const;
	void show();
	~keeper() {};
};
.
.
.
keeper keeper::getKeeper(keeper &h, char *name)
{
	ifstream fin;
	fin.open(name);

	for(int i=0;i<3;i++)
	{
		switch(i)
		{
		case 0: fin >> h.hours;
			break;
		case 1: fin >> h.minutes;
			break;
		}
	}
	fin.close();

	return h;


}

I know I can't have void keeper::........, but why do I have to have keeper beofre the code?

thanx

[parksie]

You're returning a copy of a reference already passed into the function

Either take out the reference being passed, or change it to a void. When you pass a reference you can change it from the function.

[kedaman]

I think you should have keeper& as return value

It's quite useful when building expresions with the sideeffect-paradigm

For instance:

char source[10]="something";
char* copy=strncpy(new char[10],source,10);

[[praetorian]]

Problem solved thanks to Kedaman and Parksie, thank you!