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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.
Even though C++ popularized the concept of smart pointers, especially the reference-counted variety, [3] the immediate predecessor of one of the languages that inspired C++'s design had reference-counted references built into the language. C++ was inspired in part by Simula67. [4] Simula67's ancestor was Simula I.
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.
C++ does not perform reference-counting by default, fulfilling its philosophy of not adding functionality that might incur overheads where the user has not explicitly requested it. Objects that are shared but not owned can be accessed via a reference, raw pointer, or iterator (a conceptual generalisation of pointers).
The type can be a reference or an enumerator. All types of conversions that are well-defined and allowed by the compiler are performed using static_cast. [2] [failed verification] The static_cast<> operator can be used for operations such as: converting a pointer of a base class to a pointer of a non-virtual derived class (downcasting);
Many languages have explicit pointers or references. Reference types differ from these in that the entities they refer to are always accessed via references; for example, whereas in C++ it's possible to have either a std:: string and a std:: string *, where the former is a mutable string and the latter is an explicit pointer to a mutable string (unless it's a null pointer), in Java it is only ...
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.