declaration problems

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declaration problems

kaustubh (1)
Hi folks, i have a bit of trouble with the following declarations 1. a pointer to an array of strings 2. a reference to an array of integers Any help will be appreciated..

giantMidget (14)
Post your code and any errors.

Bazzy (6258)
A pointer to an array is a pointer to the first element of that array. For a reference to an array just parenthesise eg: `int (&ref_to_array)[/Array size/];`

helios (9408)
Nope. There's no such thing as a reference to an array of integers. A reference can only point to a single variable or object, and due to their syntax, the offset operator can't be applied to them. I can't even get a reference to a pointer to work. Man, references suck.

Bazzy (6258)

Are you shure? I've tryed this code both on VC++ and MingW and it works

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

int arr[5] = {1,2,3,4,5};
int (&ref_to_array)[5]=arr;
ref_to_array[2] = 99;

int numb=6, *pointer, *&ref_to_pointer=pointer;
ref_to_pointer = &numb;

cout << arr[2] << ' ' << *pointer;

output: 99 6

Last edited on

helios (9408)
Oh, well `int (&ref_to_array)[5]=arr;` is different from `int (&ref_to_array)[5];`.

Bazzy (6258)
I think that references are useful only as function arguments, in other cases pointers are best

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