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Use references when you can, and pointers when you have to. References are usually preferred over pointers whenever you don’t need “reseating”. This usually means that references are most useful in a class’s public interface.

References typically appear on the skin of an object, and pointers on the inside. The exception to the above is where a function’s parameter or return value needs a “sentinel” reference. This is usually best done by returning/taking a pointer, and giving the NULL pointer this special significance (references should always alias objects, not a dereferenced NULL pointer).

Note: Old line C programmers sometimes don’t like references since they provide reference semantics that isn’t explicit in the caller’s code. After some C++ experience, however, one quickly realizes this is a form of information hiding, which is an asset rather than a liability. E.g., programmers should write code in the language of the problem rather than the language of the machine

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Related Blog Items

• C++ Reference Card
• const correctness
• ANSI C Reference Card
• Ascii Table Reference Card
• Calling conventions on the x86 platform

This entry was written by ponnada and posted on October 27, 2006 at 5:27 pm and filed under Pointers & Callbacks. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.