How to get a pointer from a reference?
Yes, applying the address-of operator to the reference is the same as taking the address of the original object.
#include <iostream>
struct foo {};
void bar( const foo& obj )
{
std::cout << &obj << std::endl;
}
int main()
{
foo obj;
std::cout << &obj << std::endl;
bar( obj );
return 0;
}
Result:
0x22ff1f
0x22ff1f
Any operator applied to a reference will actually apply to the object it refers to (§5/5 [expr]); the reference can be thought of as another name for the same object. Taking the address of a reference will therefore give you the address of the object that it refers to.
It as actually unspecified whether or not a reference requires storage (§8.3.2/4 [dcl.ref]) and so it wouldn't make sense to take the address of the reference itself.
As an example:
int x = 5;
int& y = x;
int* xp = &x;
int* yp = &y;
In the above example, xp
and yp
are equal - that is, the expression xp == yp
evaluates to true
because they both point to the same object.
The general solution is to use std::addressof
, as in:
#include <type_traits>
void foo(T & x)
{
T * p = std::addressof(x);
}
This works no matter whether T
overloads operator&
or not.