Is there an elegant way to swap references in C++?

Question

Sometimes classes are referencing other classes. Implementing std::swap() for such classes cannot be straightforward, because it would lead to swapping of origi

Answer 1

You may use std::reference_wrapper instead of direct reference (which you cannot swap) or pointer (which may be nullptr). Something like:

class A
{
    std::reference_wrapper r;
public:
   A(int& v) : r(v) {}
   void swap(A& rhs)
   {
      std::swap(r, rhs.r);
   }

   int& get() const { return r; }
};

Live example