Question

In the “C++ programming language”, there is an example

void g()
{  
   int ii = 0;
   int& rr = ii;
   rr++;
   int* pp = &rr;
}

The author states:

This is legal, but rr++ does not increment the reference rr, rather, ++ is applied to an int that happens to be ii.

I am quite confusing about this statement, why “rr++ does not increment the reference rr”? So rr is just used as “bridge” to increment ii?

Answer 1

A reference is similar to a dereferenced pointer to a variable. For example:

int v = 3;
int* pv = &v;
int& rv = v;

// Access v through a pointer:
*pv = 4;

// Access v through a reference:
rv = 4;

In this example, both statements will set v to 4.