Re: [Opencxx-users] C++ design patterns

[SF M. E. <el...@us...>]

> Do you think that in general it is better to return an object rather
> then NULL pointer? If so, why?

The traditional or C style handling of linked list uses the NULL pointer as a special marker. It can be used in encapsulated C++ methods, too. Another design might be to connect the pointers to a ring.
The STL consistently uses iterators. There is no need to deal with pointers directly. Please look at the section "Invariants", for example.
http://www.zib.de/benger/STL/Container.html