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Conversion to reference

Chris D · 2003-08-19T09:50:32

Hello again, I am using references to specify function arguments quite a bit lately under the (possibly misguided) impression that it is a converient way to avoid copying of large objects. Anyway this little program: #include <iostream> using namespace std; float Foo(float& arg) { return arg; } int main(void) { float a = 2.0; cout << Foo(a) << endl; cout << Foo(Foo(a)) << endl; } will not compile with g++ 3.2.2 and spits out the error [tmp]$ g++ test.cpp test.cpp: In function `int main()'': test.cpp:14: could not convert `Foo(float&)((&a))'' to `float&'' test.cpp:5: in passing argument 1 of `float Foo(float&)'' It compiles fine with VS C++ 7. Am I doing something wrong here?

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by sQuid August 19, 2003 02:36 AM

10 comments, last by sQuid 20 years, 8 months ago

Wildfire

154

August 19, 2003 09:28 AM

What is a POD-Type? [C++ FAQ Lite]

I guess he only wanted to point out that there's no actual gain when doing it with int, float etc... Maybe slower because char -> 8bit, char& -> 32bit, but does it matter on a 32bit machine?.

The real gain is with classes, since when passing by reference the computer won't have to create a copy of the class (constructor,destructor time-penalty) each time it's passed.

[edited by - Wildfire on August 19, 2003 10:34:45 AM]

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fizban75

130

August 19, 2003 09:50 AM

Yes, my comment was misleading because POD types are not restricted to the built-in types alone. So, I apologize and I will clarify my statement to say you don''t need to pass a const reference for built-in types such as int, float, char, pointers, etc.

Conversion to reference

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Conversion to reference

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