eigen/doc/PassingByValue.dox
2016-12-11 22:45:32 +01:00

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namespace Eigen {
/** \eigenManualPage TopicPassingByValue Passing Eigen objects by value to functions
Passing objects by value is almost always a very bad idea in C++, as this means useless copies, and one should pass them by reference instead.
With %Eigen, this is even more important: passing \ref TopicFixedSizeVectorizable "fixed-size vectorizable Eigen objects" by value is not only inefficient, it can be illegal or make your program crash! And the reason is that these %Eigen objects have alignment modifiers that aren't respected when they are passed by value.
For example, a function like this, where \c v is passed by value:
\code
void my_function(Eigen::Vector2d v);
\endcode
needs to be rewritten as follows, passing \c v by const reference:
\code
void my_function(const Eigen::Vector2d& v);
\endcode
Likewise if you have a class having an %Eigen object as member:
\code
struct Foo
{
Eigen::Vector2d v;
};
void my_function(Foo v);
\endcode
This function also needs to be rewritten like this:
\code
void my_function(const Foo& v);
\endcode
Note that on the other hand, there is no problem with functions that return objects by value.
*/
}