What does int & mean

Question

A C++ question,

I know

int* foo(void)

foo will return a pointer to int type

how about

int &foo(void)
         


        

Answer 1

just playing with variables to show you the meaning

int i = 5;
int * pI = &i;
int & referenceToI = * pI;
referenceToI = 4; // now i == 4

EDIT: References are just a syntactic sugar for easier pointers handling. at the assembly level, the code generated by the compiler returns to a you an address-pointer