Reference Variable:
In C++, a reference operator is denoted by an ampersand (&) symbol. It is used to create a reference variable, which acts as an alias or alternative name for an existing variable. When you create a reference variable, you're essentially creating another name for the same data in memory.
To use the reference operator and create a reference variable, you place the ampersand symbol before the name of the variable you want to reference. For example, if you have a variable called "num" of type int, you can create a reference variable called "refNum" using the reference operator like this:
int num = 10;
int& refNum = num;
cout << refNum; // Outputs: 10
In this case, "refNum" becomes a reference to the original variable "num". Any changes made to "refNum" will affect the value of "num", and vice versa, because they are essentially the same variable with two different names.
One common use of reference variables is to pass variables to functions by reference. This allows the function to modify the original variable rather than creating a copy. By passing a variable by reference, you can avoid unnecessary memory usage and improve performance.
Memory Address:
Now, let's talk about using the reference operator to get the memory address of a variable. To obtain the memory address of a variable, you can use the reference operator in combination with the "address-of" operator, which is denoted by the ampersand symbol (&). When you apply the "address-of" operator to a variable, it returns the memory address where that variable is stored.
For example, if you have a variable called "value", and you want to obtain its memory address, you can do it like this:
int value = 42;
cout << &value; // Outputs 0x8dfac11
NOTE: The memory address is in hexadecimal form (0x..). Also you may not get the same result in your program. (alert-success)
