A reference is an alias to an object. That is, it is another name for the object, and so access to the object is the same through a reference as it is through the object's variable name. A reference is declared using a & symbol on the reference name and it is initialized and accessed in exactly the same way as a variable:
int i = 42; int *pi = &i; // pointer to an integer int& ri1 = i; // reference to a variable i = 99; // change the integer thru the variable *pi = 101; // change the integer thru the pointer ri1 = -1; // change the integer thru the reference int& ri2 {i}; // another reference to the variable int j = 1000; pi = &j; // point to another integer
In this code, a variable is declared and initialized, then a ...
