Refrence

[mzd72]

Hello
I have a question.
what dose & mean in functions?
int &a()
{
}
Thanks alot.

[Bazzy]

That means that it returns a reference. It's usually used for classes which don't have the copy constructor
eg:

ostream &operator << ( ostream &os, other argument)
{
    //...
    return os;
}

[anders43]

best with an example:

class A
{
public:
  A() : a_(0) {;}
  int & refA() { return a_; }  // return reference to a_
  int valA() { return a_; }     // return copy of a_
protected:
  int a_;
};

A aa;

aa.refA() = 1; // you are changing the value of a_
aa.valA() = 1;  // illegal as a_ is not accessible via valA()

hth

[mzd72]

Thanks alot i got it

[mzd72]

Thanks alot i got it