References

A reference is an alias to an object. That is, it is another name for the object, and so access to the object is the same through a reference as it is through the object's variable name. A reference is declared using a & symbol on the reference name and it is initialized and accessed in exactly the same way as a variable:

    int i = 42; 
    int *pi = &i;  // pointer to an integer 
    int& ri1 = i;  // reference to a variable 
    i = 99;        // change the integer thru the variable 
    *pi = 101;     // change the integer thru the pointer 
    ri1 = -1;      // change the integer thru the reference 
    int& ri2 {i};  // another reference to the variable 
    int j = 1000; 
    pi = &j;       // point to another integer

In this code, a variable is declared and initialized, then a pointer is initialized to point to this data, and a reference is initialized as an alias for the variable. Reference ri1 is initialized with an assignment operator, whereas reference...