Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
C++ also supports another form of reference, quite different from a pointer, called simply a reference or reference type. Pointer arithmetic , that is, the ability to modify a pointer's target address with arithmetic operations (as well as magnitude comparisons), is restricted by the language standard to remain within the bounds of a single ...
In the C++ programming language, a reference is a simple reference datatype that is less powerful but safer than the pointer type inherited from C.The name C++ reference may cause confusion, as in computer science a reference is a general concept datatype, with pointers and C++ references being specific reference datatype implementations.
A function pointer, also called a subroutine pointer or procedure pointer, is a pointer referencing executable code, rather than data. Dereferencing the function pointer yields the referenced function , which can be invoked and passed arguments just as in a normal function call.
A tracking reference in C++/CLI is a handle of a passed-by-reference variable. It is similar in concept to using *& (reference to a pointer) in standard C++, and (in function declarations) corresponds to the ref keyword applied to types in C#, or ByRef in Visual Basic .NET. C++/CLI uses a ^% syntax to indicate a tracking reference to a handle.
Objects that are shared but not owned can be accessed via a reference, raw pointer, or iterator (a conceptual generalisation of pointers). However, by the same token, C++ provides native ways for users to opt-into such functionality: C++11 provides reference counted smart pointers, via the std::shared_ptr class, enabling automatic shared memory ...
A reference is an abstract data type and may be implemented in many ways. Typically, a reference refers to data stored in memory on a given system, and its internal value is the memory address of the data, i.e. a reference is implemented as a pointer. For this reason a reference is often said to "point to" the data.
The reference to the object is passed as a hidden argument, usually accessible from within the method as this. A parameter called by reference is syntactic sugar for technically passing a pointer as the parameter, but syntactically handling it as the variable itself, to avoid constant pointer de-referencing in the code inside the function.
The d-pointer pattern is one of the implementations of the opaque pointer. It is commonly used in C++ classes due to its advantages (noted below). A d-pointer is a private data member of the class that points to an instance of a structure. This method allows class declarations to omit private data members, except for the d-pointer itself. [6]