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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.
An allocator, A, for objects of type T must have a member function with the signature A:: pointer A:: allocate (size_type n, A < void >:: const_pointer hint = 0). This function returns a pointer to the first element of a newly allocated array large enough to contain n objects of type T ; only the memory is allocated, and the objects are not ...
A null pointer has a value reserved for indicating that the pointer does not refer to a valid object. Null pointers are routinely used to represent conditions such as the end of a list of unknown length or the failure to perform some action; this use of null pointers can be compared to nullable types and to the Nothing value in an option type.
Specifically, C allows a void* pointer to be assigned to any pointer type without a cast, while C++ does not; this idiom appears often in C code using malloc memory allocation, [9] or in the passing of context pointers to the POSIX pthreads API, and other frameworks involving callbacks. For example, the following is valid in C but not C++:
As the type of an object at its creation is known at compile time, constructors, and by extension copy constructors, cannot be virtual. Nonetheless, a situation may arise where a copy of an object needs to be created when a pointer to a derived object is passed as a pointer to a base object.
C supports the use of pointers, a type of reference that records the address or location of an object or function in memory. Pointers can be dereferenced to access data stored at the address pointed to, or to invoke a pointed-to function. Pointers can be manipulated using assignment or pointer arithmetic. The run-time representation of a ...
Objects can contain other objects in their instance variables; this is known as object composition. For example, an object in the Employee class might contain (either directly or through a pointer) an object in the Address class, in addition to its own instance variables like "first_name" and "position".
Non-static member functions (instance methods) have an implicit parameter (the this pointer) which is the pointer to the object it is operating on, so the type of the object must be included as part of the type of the function pointer. The method is then used on an object of that class by using one of the "pointer-to-member" operators: .* or ...