Pointer vs. Reference

Question

What would be better practice when giving a function the original variable to work with:

unsigned long x = 4;

void func1(unsigned long& val) {
     val          


        

Answer 1

Pointers:

• Can be assigned nullptr (or NULL).
• At the call site, you must use & if your type is not a pointer itself, making explicitly you are modifying your object.
• Pointers can be rebound.

References:

• Cannot be null.
• Once bound, cannot change.
• Callers don't need to explicitly use &. This is considered sometimes bad because you must go to the implementation of the function to see if your parameter is modified.