Returning value by ref does not create a ref. Is this intentional?

[Paul Backus]

On Wednesday, 5 January 2022 at 04:35:12 UTC, Tejas wrote:
> ```d
> import std.stdio:writeln;
>
> ref int func(return ref int a){
>     a = 6; // modifies a as expected
>     return a;
> }
> void main(){
>     int a = 5;
>     auto c = func(a); // I expected c to alias a here
>     c = 10; // Expected to modify a as well
>     writeln(a); // prints 6 :(
> }
> ```

Local variables cannot be references, so when you assign the 
reference returned from `func` to the variable `auto c`, a copy 
is created.

To make this work the way you want it to, you must use a pointer:

```d
int a = 5;
auto p = &func(a); // use & to get a pointer
*p = 10;
writeln(a); // prints 10
```