Reference
Creating References
A reference variable is a “reference” to an existing variable, and it is created with the & operator:
string food = "Pizza"; // food variable
string &meal = food; // reference to food
Now, we can use either the variable name food or the reference name meal to refer to the food variable:
Example
string food = "Pizza"; string &meal = food; cout << food << "\n"; // Outputs Pizza cout << meal << "\n"; // Outputs Pizza
Memory Address
The & operator was used to create a reference variable. But it can also be used to get the memory address of a variable; which is the location of where the variable is stored on the computer.
When a variable is created in C++, a memory address is assigned to the variable. And when we assign a value to the variable, it is stored in this memory address.
To access it, use the & operator, and the result will represent where the variable is stored.
References and Pointers are important in C++, because they give you the ability to manipulate the data in the computer’s memory – which can reduce the code and improve the performance.