From: "Ole Laursen" Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp References: <3 DOT 0 DOT 32 DOT 19990801181614 DOT 007b9130 AT mail DOT colba DOT net> <37a5e4a8 AT news DOT ismi DOT net> Subject: Re: BITMAP pointers w/ Allegro. Lines: 22 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 22:16:08 +0200 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.54.77.135 X-Complaints-To: news-abuse AT wol DOT dk X-Trace: news020.image.dk 933625209 212.54.77.135 (Mon, 02 Aug 1999 22:20:09 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 22:20:09 MET DST To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com > I've got a question about that, I was asking around on IRC about this > problem and they said that its improper programming practice (wow that's > hard to say) to have the return value of a function be a pointer. They said > that it violates the law of encapsulation. But I've noticed that the > Allegro library does it all the time with BITMAP structures, is that bad? You (or should I say they) just can't generalize like that - it depends on the situation. In Allegro's case I can't remember any of such function right now, other than load_bmp and create_bitmap which can be thought of as a constructor (thus it has to be like that, and it is good). And that it should violate the law of encapsulation - hmm... I think they were thinking about something slightly different, maybe. -- Ole Laursen - http://sunsite.auc.dk/olau/ Row, row, row your boat, gently down the streeaam (gee!)