But this is not possible in our real code.

That may be true, but the solution to get around that may be a cure worse that the disease.

If you passed a reference, then this code would be more re-usable. As it stands now it's a one-off, an I wonder why you're bothering. I suppose there's some reason in the real code, but this still looks counter-productive to this observer.

--Bob Niederman, http://bob-n.com