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Oct 26th, 2007
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passby pointer or reference?

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One function is pass by pointer which stores the reference, the other is just pass by a reference... are theses methods equvilent or does one method require more memory than the other?

c++ Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)
  1. #include <iostream>
  2. using namespace std;
  3.  
  4. void cubeByRef(int *num);
  5. void cubeByRef2(int &num);
  6.  
  7. int main(){
  8.     int a = 2;
  9.     cubeByRef(&a);
  10.     cout << "cubeByRef : " << a << endl;
  11.  
  12.     a = 2;
  13.     cubeByRef2(a);
  14.     cout << "cubeByRef2: " << a << endl;
  15.  
  16.     return 0;
  17. }
  18.  
  19. void cubeByRef(int *num){
  20.     *num = *num * *num * *num;
  21. }
  22.  
  23. void cubeByRef2(int &num){
  24.     num = num * num * num;
  25. }
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Oct 26th, 2007
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Re: passby pointer or reference?

>> are theses methods equvilent
yes (almost). There are a couple things that can be done with pointer num that can not be done with the reference.

>> or does one method require more memory than the other?
no
Last edited by Ancient Dragon; Oct 26th, 2007 at 9:24 pm.
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Re: passby pointer or reference?

Other than pointer arithmetics or something I don't know anything else... but the memory thing was what I wanted to know...
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Re: passby pointer or reference?

The internal code produced by your compiler most likely is the same for both functions, so there would be no difference in memory requirements. The difference between the two functions is the c++ language requirements, compilers may implement them however it wants to.
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This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
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