Problem returning a reference to a file with a get method

[guima]

Hi guys, I have a class whose one of it's methods has the purpose of return a reference to a private ifstream member. This one:

ifstream& FileManager::getFileReader () {
  return &fileReader;
}

Unfortunatelly it's generating this error message

FileManager.cpp:12: error: invalid initialization of non-const reference of
type 'std::ifstream&' from a temporary of type 'std::ifstream*'

Can anyone explain it to me? Thanks.

[Zhuge]

Don't return the address of fileReader. Just return fileReader itself.

[Nexius]

&fileReader returns a pointer to that type.