Re: why creating pointer to reference member is illegal?

fabio.lombardelli wrote:


Amazingly, none of the replies answered your question, because your
question looks like a much more common question. They answered the
following question:

     int main()
     {
         int i;
         Test t( &i );
         int&* p = &t.ref; // why can't I do this?
     }

Now that the wrong question is out of the way, perhaps we can now address
your question of why one can't take a pointer to MEMBER (not object) where
the member is a reference. Just as a refresher, this takes a pointer to
member for a NON-reference type:

     typedef int T; // why doesn't this work if changed to int&?

     struct X { T i; };

     void example( X& x )
     {
         T X::*mptr = &X::i; // get pointer to member
         x.*mptr = 123; // now dereference it on an object
     }

Why can't we do the same thing when i is of type int&?

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