What are the distinctions between the various symbols (*,&, etc) combined with parameters? [duplicate]

Answer 1

The symbols * and & have three meanings each in C++:

1. When applied to an expression, they mean "dereference" and "address-of" respectively, as you know.

2. When part of a type, they mean "pointer" and "reference", respectively.

   Since C++ doesn't care about arbitrary spacing, the declaration int *ptr is exactly the same as the declaration int* ptr, in which you can now more clearly see that this is an object called ptr of type int*.¹

3. When used between two expressions, they mean "multiply" and "bitwise AND", respectively.

---

^{1 - though, frustratingly, this isn't actually how the internal grammar reads it, thanks to the nasty legacy of C's type system. So avoid single-line multi-declarations involving pointers unless you want a surprise.}