Bug 4068 – Returning references to const members yield error message

The following should IMO compile: struct S { const int n; const ref int bar( ) { return n; } } It fails on the line 'return n;', with the message 'Error: can only initialize const member n inside constructor' The same behavior exists with immutable members and references.

This probably is invalid, because the const in that position applies to the this pointer. It's equivalent to: ref int bar() const { To get the desired behavior, use parentheses: ref const(int) bar() { These kinds of errors are why I think allowing const at the beginning of the function should be deprecated. One strange thing, this also has same error: ref const int bar() { It would follow logically that if const applies to the function bar and not the return value, then ref applies to the function bar as well, but it obviously only applies to the return value.

(In reply to comment #1) > This probably is invalid, because the const in that position applies to the > this pointer. It's equivalent to: > [...] > These kinds of errors are why I think allowing const at the beginning of the > function should be deprecated. Indeed. Closing this one.