Re: Reference is not an object.

From:

Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Mon, 11 Nov 2013 14:18:28 +1300

Message-ID:

<beapj4Fn6qpU2@mid.individual.net>

wy wrote:

I'm reading "C++ Primer", and it emphasizes "reference is not an object".
In P51, it says "Because references are not objects, we may not define a
reference to a reference." And in P52, it says "Because references are
not objects, they don't have addresses. Hence, we may not define a
pointer to a reference."

But the following code works with g++.

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
      int val = 0xfe;
      int &ref= val;
      int &r = ref;
      int *p = &ref;
      cout << "val = " << val << endl;
      cout << "ref = " << ref << endl;
      cout << "r = " << r << endl;
      cout << "*p = " << *p << endl;
      return 0;
}

Is the feature not standard, or do I misunderstand?

You misunderstand!

  int &r = ref;

doesn't declare a reference to a reference, it declares another
reference that is assigned the same value as ref.

  int *p = &ref;

declares an int pointer to the address of whatever ref is bound to. Yo
can see this by adding the line

  cout << "p = " << p << " &val = " << &val << endl;

int& *p;

would attempt to declare a pointer to a reference.

--
Ian Collins