Declare a reference and initialize later?

Question

I have a reference to MyOjbect, but the the exact object depends on a condition. So I want to do something like this:

MyObject& ref; 
if([co         


        

Answer 1

AFAIK this can't be done with a reference. You'd have to use a pointer:

MyClass *ptr;

if (condition)
    ptr = &object;
else
    ptr = &other_object;

The pointer will act similar to a reference. Just don't forget to use -> for member access.