Array size

[chameleon]

Is this a good approach to get a pointer and the size of the array?
Or there are better solutions?

struct MechanicalElement
{
   virtual std::pair<size_t, Node*> getNodes() = 0;
};

struct Beam : public MechanicalElement
{
   virtual std::pair<size_t, Node*> getNodes()  { return std::pair<size_t, Node*>(2, node); }

protected:
   Node node[2];
};

[Moschops]

Use a vector.

[vlad from moscow]

It is better to declare the functions as const and change the order of elements of the pair

virtual std::pair<Node *, size_t> getNodes() const = 0;