Exact meaning of functions returning reference

[comwizz]

How are functions returning reference used?? Do they return values on the left side or the right side of the assignment. I would be glad if I could get some help.
Thanks,
comwizz.

[SpS]

How are functions returning reference used?? Do they return values on the left side or the right side of the assignment. I would be glad if I could get some help. Thanks, comwizz.

Try looking at this and post further queries http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/references.html#faq-8.2

[comwizz]

Why should references be used at all?? As we could always use pointers in place of them as if we change the value of the pointer , automatically the value of variable it points to is changed eg. p=&s;*p=7;changes the value of s also. Also , would a function returning a reference be used on the right side of assignment operator ?? eg. c=max();where max returns a reference variable having similar datatype to c.Please reply.
Thanks,
comwizz.

[Ancient Dragon]

one place a reference is needed and pointers will not work is overloading the [] operator. You couldn't implement this as neatly using pointers.

And the reference can be used on both left and right side of the operators, as illustrated in main() below.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

class matrix
{
private:
	int array[10];
public:
	matrix() {memset(array,0,sizeof(array));}
	int& operator[](int index) {return array[index];} 

};

int main()
{

	matrix m;
	m[0] = 1;
	m[1] = 2;
             int x = m[2];
	cout << m[0] << endl;
	cout << m[1] << endl;

	return 0;
}

[Bench]

Why should references be used at all?? As we could always use pointers in place of them as if we change the value of the pointer , automatically the value of variable it points to is changed eg. p=&s;*p=7;

I think you almost answered your own question - why use references? Well, because pointer syntax can look ugly. pointers are also error prone. In general, use References whereever you can, only use Pointers when you have to.