How C++ reference works

Question

After working 15 years in C++ I found that I don\'t understand references completely...

class TestClass
{
public:
    TestClass() : m_nData(0)
    {
    }

    T         


        

Answer 1

TestClass& c = TestClass();

This wouldn't even compile!

Attempting to bind a temporary to non-const reference would result in compilation error.

However, you can bind a temporary to const reference:

{
   const TestClass& c = TestClass();
   //use c 
   //....
}//<-------- the temporary will be destroyed here.

In this case, the life of the temporary extends to the lifetime of the reference, i.e when the reference variable goes out of scope, the temporary will be destroyed as shown above.