Does a reference have its own memory address?

[northfly]

I write a code like this:

#include<vector>
#include<string>
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {

int v=1;
int &r=v;
int *pv=&v;
int *pr=&r;

cout<<pv<<*pv<<endl;
cout<<pr<<*pr<<endl;



return 0;
}

the results of the two output is totally, so it means reference's address is totally the same as its original? why, it do not need a place to store where it is representing??? you know, even a constant has a address.

a reference is not a label functioning like a literal expression when compiling, right?? But if it don't have an address, it loooks like so.


Thanks.

[Disch]

Short answer: no, they don't have their own address

More technical answer: they might have their own address in some circumstances, but you can't access that address in C++


Explanation:

Conceptually, a reference is just an alias for the referred variable. Therefore when you say:
int &r=v;, that means that r "is" v. They're both different names to access the same variable.

Therefore since v and r are the same variable, &v would be equal to &r as your test shows.

[Moschops]

the results of the two output is totally,

Totally what? The same?

A reference is the object. You can think of it as another name, an alias, for the exact same object. Not a copy of the object. The exact same object.

In your code, r is another name for v.

Try this:

#include<vector>
#include<string>
#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {

int v=1;
int &r=v;
int *pv=&v;
int *pr=&r;

cout<<pv<<*pv<<endl;
cout<<pr<<*pr<<endl;

cout << "v = " << v << endl;
cout << "r = " << r << endl;
v++;

cout << "v = " << v << endl;
cout << "r = " << r << endl;



return 0;
}

[northfly]

Thanks! I come up with another question.

How does C++ store a variable's name and value? does it store the object's name in one place and its value in another place? and then link them together? or the name is a label in the source code, and it always know where to find its value?

or else?

[coder777]

names are irrelevant for the computer. At the end they're discarded and the computation is only done on addresses of each variable

[Disch]

Variables get put at a memory location.

The program accesses those variables by reading/writing that memory location.

The user friendly names that we give our variables do not exist in the compiled program (except for things like debugging symbols, but that's another topic)