In the current semester at the university we are working on OOP with C++. I woul
ID: 642525 • Letter: I
Question
In the current semester at the university we are working on OOP with C++.
I would like to understand the difference between a pointer and a reference operator.
The differences that I understand are:
1. Cannot change the object that the reference variable is binded to
2. we can use the reference variables to refer to the binded object without having to type the & operator (in contrast with the pointers where we would write *pi = 5;)
Also,does a reference variable contain the address of the object that is binded to?
In example:
int i;
int &ri = i;
Here ri contains the address of i?
And the reason why when overloading ++ operator in this example of enumeration we are using the dereference or reference(*) operators before the name of the function.
Explanation / Answer
A reference serves one purpose: to act as an alias for an existing variable:
int i;
int &ri = i;
In this example, the addresses of i and ri are identical (&i == &ri). The two names refer to the very same location in memory. Thus one of the useful applications of references is to provide an alias for a long name that it would be wasteful to retype:
const Location& p = irresponsibly_long_object_name.retrieve_location();
When you pass a function parameter by reference, it has the same effect:
void increment(int& parameter) { ++parameter; }
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
int variable = 0;
increment(variable);
}
Here, parameter serves merely as an alias of variable, just as though it were defined as int& parameter = variable. Modifying parameter inside increment() is indistinguishable from modifying variable in main(). Furthermore