Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: reference parameters for overloaded operators
Message-ID: <56749@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 90 19:03:55 GMT
References: <1990Aug13.144540.7804@ctk1.UUCP> <26CBE285.4EC2@tct.uucp>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 11

In article <26CBE285.4EC2@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>According to chris@ctk1.UUCP (Chris Old):
>>When should one use references rather than passing by value to
>>overloaded operators?
>
>I have found references useful as parameters when the objects passed
>as parameters cannot be copied cheaply (or at all).

Also, whenever doing polymorphic programming [as in vtables and virtual
functions, not polymophic via parameter overloading] one should call
by reference to avoid the slicing problem.