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What is the difference between
public function Foo(ref Bar bar) { bar.Prop = 1; } public function Foo(Bar bar) { bar.Prop = 1; } essentially what is the point of ‘ref’. isn’t an object always by reference?
The point is that you never actually pass an object. You pass a reference – and the argument itself can be passed by reference or value. They behave differently if you change the parameter value itself, e.g. setting it to
nullor to a different reference. Withrefthis change affects the caller’s variable; withoutrefit was only a copy of the value which was passed, so the caller doesn’t see any change to their variable.See my article on argument passing for more details.