> I agree that const should be used for "logical constness". The rule should > not be merely "doesn't alter any data members of this object" but rather > "does not alter observable state of this object or vend any type of pointer > or reference by which observable state of this object could be altered". > > Precisely!
I like this explanation too. I'm trying to think of a simple way to explain / test whether something falls into the category of logical constness, since it can be ambiguous. It occurred to me that a simple, though imperfect, test is just, "Is this function called by an owner of a const pointer / reference?" After all, a const member function is meaningless if nobody points to the class through a const pointer / reference. For classes like DOM and render tree nodes, which have no meaningful const-pointer-owning clients, the answer is always no. For other classes, the answer is yes, but only if someone has found a meaningful use for a const pointer or reference to the class. So, perhaps the real style question we should answer is when to use const pointers / references, since the answer to when to use const member functions will follow from it. What are some good examples of existing code that meaningfully uses a const pointer or reference? (Something other than, say, the obligatory const& in a copy constructor.) Geoff
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