retrieving an object from boost::optional

Question

Suppose a method returns something like this

boost::optional<SomeClass> SomeMethod() {...} 

Now suppose I have something like this

boost::optional<SomeClass> val = SomeMethod(); 

Now my question is how can I extract SomeClass out of val ?

So that I could do something like this:

SomeClass sc = val ? 

Answer 1

You could use the de-reference operator:

SomeClass sc = *val; 

Alternatively, you can use the get() method:

SomeClass sc = val.get(); 

Both of these return an lvalue reference to the underlying SomeClass object.