bugprone-misleading-setter-of-reference

Finds setter-like member functions that take a pointer parameter and set a reference member of the same class with the pointed value.

The check detects member functions that take a single pointer parameter, and contain a single expression statement that dereferences the parameter and assigns the result to a data member with a reference type.

The fact that a setter function takes a pointer might cause the belief that an internal reference (if it would be a pointer) is changed instead of the pointed-to (or referenced) value.

Example:

class MyClass {
  int &InternalRef;  // non-const reference member
public:
  MyClass(int &Value) : InternalRef(Value) {}

  // Warning: This setter could lead to unintended behaviour.
  void setRef(int *Value) {
    InternalRef = *Value;  // This assigns to the referenced value, not changing what InternalRef references.
  }
};

int main() {
  int Value1 = 42;
  int Value2 = 100;
  MyClass X(Value1);

  // This might look like it changes what InternalRef references to,
  // but it actually modifies Value1 to be 100.
  X.setRef(&Value2);
}

Possible fixes:

• Change the parameter type of the “set” function to non-pointer type (for example, a const reference).

• Change the type of the member variable to a pointer and in the “set” function assign a value to the pointer (without dereference).