Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!rit!jeh
From: jeh@cs.rit.edu (Jim Heliotis)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Why use reference type over pointer type?
Message-ID: <1806@cs.rit.edu>
Date: 1 Aug 90 21:09:52 GMT
References: <1676@dinl.mmc.UUCP>
Sender: news@cs.rit.edu
Reply-To: jeh@cs.rit.edu
Lines: 23

From article <1676@dinl.mmc.UUCP>, by noren@dinl.uucp (Charles Noren):
> Its obvious, I'm new to C++.
> What does does a reference type give me over a pointer type
> that I've come to love and know well in C?  ......

I, as a professor, have been asked this so many times that I would love
to hear people's opinions on this.

I personally prefer to use them because I like

	call-by-reference semantics
	"lvalue" - type variables

but I do not care for aliases.

I do have a hard time justifying their existence to more practically-minded
students, however.

				Jim Heliotis
				Rochester Institute of Technology
				Rochester, NY 14623-0887
				jeh@CS.RIT.EDU
				{allegra,seismo}!rochester!rit!jeh