How do I dereference the return value of a function returning a pointer without using a temporary variable?

Question

C++ noob here.

So, this is a member function of my class DbHelper :

QSqlQueryModel* getCourses();

Now, whenever I do this in class MyModel where QSqlQueryModel courses is a member:

this->courses = *(dbHelper->getCourses()); // problem here ... this is inside a member function of MyModel

Visual Studio says that

function ... operator= cannot be referenced ... it is a deleted function

Of course I can do this instead:

QSqlQueryModel* q = dbHelper->getCourses();
this->courses = *q;

But I'm thinking that declaring another variable just to dereference it is possibly redundant. So is there a shorter way?

EDIT:

Just verified it with VS and it turned out I really can't. My mind really just got messed up in studying pointers and references the entire afternoon. Thanks people.

Answer 1

The authors of the QSqlQueryModel class are being cute and are cleverly forbidding the copying of instances of that object.

The class member should be a pointer type:

QSqlQueryModel* courses;

as the documentation states that you don't own the memory associated with the pointer. Then you set trivially

this->courses = dbHelper->getCourses();