References

[Pelle Beckman]

Hello,

I've seen almost everyone here talk about
references instead of pointers (as I understand it).
Anyone knows a good tutorial och can explain
the concept of references?

-- Pelle

 

[John Carson]

Hello,

I've seen almost everyone here talk about
references instead of pointers (as I understand it).
Anyone knows a good tutorial och can explain
the concept of references?

-- Pelle

You should be reading a good C++ textbook. Trying to pick up the language
from tutorials is a hopeless task. This book is freely downloadable (and
good):

http://mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html

 

[Jonathan Bartlett]

I've seen almost everyone here talk about
references instead of pointers (as I understand it).
Anyone knows a good tutorial och can explain
the concept of references?

You can think of a reference as a pointer that cannot change where it is
pointing, but is used syntactically as if it were just a value.

Things to note:

1) Since passing by reference actually passes a pointer, any
modifications done in the function will affect the original value.
2) For large structs, passing by reference prevents you from having to
copy the data structure when passed.
3) If you don't need to do pointer fiddling, the syntax of references is
much easier than that of pointers.

Basically, a reference is a pointer with all of the "pointer-y" stuff
hidden from you.

Jon

 

[sorry]

hi:
"More Effective C++" written by scott Meyers

sorry

 

[Sumit Rajan]

Hello,

I've seen almost everyone here talk about
references instead of pointers (as I understand it).
Anyone knows a good tutorial och can explain
the concept of references?

You may also find the FAQ interesting. Not a tutorial, it may just answer
some of your questions on references:
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/references.html

Regards,
Sumit.

 

[Matthias Kaeppler]

You can think of a reference as a pointer that cannot change where it is
pointing, but is used syntactically as if it were just a value.

Things to note:

1) Since passing by reference actually passes a pointer, any
modifications done in the function will affect the original value.
2) For large structs, passing by reference prevents you from having to
copy the data structure when passed.
3) If you don't need to do pointer fiddling, the syntax of references is
much easier than that of pointers.

Basically, a reference is a pointer with all of the "pointer-y" stuff
hidden from you.

Jon

I find your description of references highly misleading. What you
describe is a const pointer, not a reference. A reference doesn't store
an address, it's just an alias for an object. That's all.