Our website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience.
Accept
to the top
close form

Fill out the form in 2 simple steps below:

Your contact information:

Step 1
Congratulations! This is your promo code!

Desired license type:

Step 2
Team license
Enterprise license
** By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement
close form
Request our prices
New License
License Renewal
--Select currency--
USD
EUR
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
Free PVS‑Studio license for Microsoft MVP specialists
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
To get the licence for your open-source project, please fill out this form
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
I am interested to try it on the platforms:
* By clicking this button you agree to our Privacy Policy statement

close form
check circle
Message submitted.

Your message has been sent. We will email you at


If you do not see the email in your inbox, please check if it is filtered to one of the following folders:

  • Promotion
  • Updates
  • Spam

Webinar: Evaluation - 05.12

>
>
>
V558. Function returns pointer/referenc…
menu mobile close menu
Analyzer diagnostics
General Analysis (C++)
General Analysis (C#)
General Analysis (Java)
Micro-Optimizations (C++)
Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (Viva64, C++)
Customer specific requests (C++)
MISRA errors
AUTOSAR errors
OWASP errors (C++)
OWASP errors (C#)
Problems related to code analyzer
Additional information
toggle menu Contents

V558. Function returns pointer/reference to temporary local object.

Jun 12 2012

The analyzer detected an issue when a function returns a pointer to a local object. This object will be destroyed when leaving the function, so you will not be able to use the pointer to it anymore.

In a most common case, this diagnostic message is generated against the following code:

float *F()
{
  float f = 1.0;
  return &f;
}

Of course, the error would hardly be present in such a form in real code. Let's consider a more real example.

int *Foo()
{
  int A[10];
  // ...
  if (err)
    return 0;
  
  int *B = new int[10];
  memcpy(B, A, sizeof(A));

  return A;
}

Here, we handled the temporary array A. On some condition, we must return the pointer to the new array B. But the misprint causes the A array to be returned, which will cause unexpected behavior of the program or crash. This is the correct code:

int *Foo()
{
  ...  
  int *B = new int[10];
  memcpy(B, A, sizeof(A));
  return B;
}

This diagnostic is classified as:

You can look at examples of errors detected by the V558 diagnostic.