In C++, what does & mean after a function's return type?

Question

In a C++ function like this:

int& getNumber();

what does the & mean? Is it different from:

int getNumb         


        

Answer 1

It means that it is a reference type. What's a reference?

Wikipedia:

In the C++ programming language, a reference is a simple reference datatype that is less powerful but safer than the pointer type inherited from C. The name C++ reference may cause confusion, as in computer science a reference is a general concept datatype, with pointers and C++ references being specific reference datatype implementations. The declaration of the form:

Type & Name

where is a type and is an identifier whose type is reference to .

Examples:

1. int A = 5;
2. int& rA = A;
3. extern int& rB;
4. int& foo ();
5. void bar (int& rP);
6. class MyClass { int& m_b; /* ... */ };
7. int funcX() { return 42 ; }; int (&xFunc)() = funcX;

Here, rA and rB are of type "reference to int", foo() is a function that returns a reference to int, bar() is a function with a reference parameter, which is reference to int, MyClass is a class with a member which is reference to int, funcX() is a function that returns an int, xFunc() is an alias for funcX.

Rest of the explanation is here