Next tool: Object References

If you program in C, you know what a pointer is.

int i =3;

int *p;

p = &i;

The value of the variable p is the memory address of the variable i.

i is the same as *p (dereference pointer).

*p means “take the value of the memory location where p points to”.

now you can call the variable by either name.

A reference is something only available in C++

int i =3;

int &j = i;

integer i

integer j

equivalence (i,j)

i =5

print*, j

end

This is a bit like an equivalence statement in Fortran:

int

This can be confusing. Read as “give the variable i a second name”.

Object references are important because they are a very efficient way to pass objects as parameters.