pointers and references

[johnmerlino]

In the program below, we copy a reference from cDerived to rBase with "Base &rBase = &cDerived;" But why doesn't it use a pointer instead? Wouldn't it make more sense to do the following: "Base *rBase = &cDerived;" since a pointer is what points to an address.

class Base
{
protected:
 
public:
    virtual const char* GetName() { return "Base"; }
};
 
class Derived: public Base
{
public:
    virtual const char* GetName() { return "Derived"; }
};
 
int main()
{
    Derived cDerived;
    Base &rBase = &cDerived;
    cout << "rBase is a " << rBase.GetName() << endl;
 
    return 0;
}

# output:
rBase is a Derived

[ne555]

In function ‘int main()’:
18: error: invalid initialization of non-const reference of type ‘Base&’ from an rvalue of type ‘Derived*’

Base &reference = cDerived;
Base *pointer = &cDerived;