C++ Crash Course

3REFERENCE TYPES

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you’re as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?—Brian Kernighan

Reference types store the memory addresses of objects. These types enable efficient programming, and many elegant design patterns feature them. In this chapter, I’ll discuss the two kinds of reference types: pointers and references. I’ll also discuss this, const, and auto along the way.

Pointers

Pointers are the fundamental mechanism used to refer to memory addresses. Pointers encode both pieces of information required to interact with another ...