Custom return value policy per function

[lczech]

Hey Sergey,

if I'm understanding the documentation correctly, the return value policies for each of the categories (default_...) are applied to all functions in that category, and there is no way to specify a specific return value policy per function or member?

How would I then override this for functions for which the particular default is not the right policy? I cannot find anything on that.

Thanks and so long
Lucas

[lyskov]

That is correct, - currently there is no functionality to specify return-value policy per function basis. Idea behind this was/is that we binding a package that have some sort of unified convention in place regarding how values should be handled which only depends on kind of returned values so no per-function/per-member specification is needed.

[lczech]

Hm I see, yes, ideally, that would be the case, all of them being consistent. I am not sure though that this is true throughout my code base - there might be some special cases that need to be handled differently. Without putting in the work of going through all of it, I don't know that yet though.

So, in these cases, I'd currently need to deactivate bindings, and do it manually instead? Or what would be the way to go there?

Alternatively, how tricky is it do add a token type for the config for that? I could have a look - the policies seem to be only used in a few places. Maybe:

+return_value_policy my_namespace::MyClass::my_function reference

That token would have a bit of a weird syntax, with the + seemingly being required there (what would a - mean in that case?).

What do you think?