Question

Consider the following:

int someA = 1;
int someB = 2;

int &a = someA;
int &b = someB;

a = b;   // what happens here?

What’s happening here with the references? Just curious.

Answer 1

Having two reference variables equal to each other is in itself not an error. It may be confusing. However, what your code does is not setting a reference to another reference, it’s altering the value of _A from 1 to 2, which is what’s in _B.

You can ONLY set a reference ONCE [where it is initialized]. Once it’s been initialized, it will simply become an alias for the original variable.

You could do this:

int &a = _A;
int &b = _A;

and

a = b;  

would store the value 1 into _A, which already has the value 1.