references

[stupid idiot]

I just got a bit confused at our last reading, i thought i understand references just fine but apparently I don't. I always thought this:

int a=5;
int &b=a;

is the same as:

int a=5;
int b;
&b=&a;

except the compiler is prompting you with ansi if you want to change adress of the b variable in the first case, it's just a warning though so it doesn't really matter... or does it?

[helios]

I think you're confusing the address-of operator and the reference declarator. The reference declarator is just a syntactical feature and is completely unrelated to the operator. It could have have been $ (e.g. int $b=a;) and it wouldn't have changed anything.
The address-of operator, as its name implies, gives the address of its operand. The result is an rvalue, which means it can't be used as the left-hand operand of the assignment operator.

Your first snippet is equivalent to this:

int a=5;
int *b=&a;

[stupid idiot]

ahaa.. wow, thanks a lot