curly-brace-aphobic?

[Randall Kern]

"Quinn Dunkan" <quinn at groat.ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:slrn97cu0u.eti.quinn at groat.ugcs.caltech.edu...
> If C++ allows 'f(x) = y;', then C++ is truly weird.  What is *that*
supposed
> to mean?  'f(x)' returns a value, and assigning to a value makes no sense.
> You assign to variables, not values.  I could understand '*(f(x)) = y;',
but
> the only way I can see to get 'f(x) = y;' to do what you want is to have
'f'
> return an lvalue.

int i = 0;
int& f(int x)
{
    return i;
}

int main()
{
    f(2) = 5;  // the global i is now 5
}

The function f() has the return type 'int reference', like a pointer that
doesn't need to be dereferenced.
-Randy