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Alek Richter
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Enlightened
Asked: 2021-12-22T02:42:31+00:00

Passing an array by reference

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How does passing a statically allocated array by reference work?

void foo(int (&myArray)[100])
{
}

int main()
{
    int a[100];
    foo(a);
}

Does (&myArray)[100] have any meaning or its just a syntax to pass any array by reference? I don’t understand separate parenthesis followed by big brackets here. Thanks.

1 Answer

  2. Enlightened

    It’s a syntax for array references – you need to use (&array) to clarify to the compiler that you want a reference to an array, rather than the (invalid) array of references int & array[100];.

    EDIT: Some clarification.

    void foo(int * x);
void foo(int x[100]);
void foo(int x[]);

    These three are different ways of declaring the same function. They’re all treated as taking an int * parameter, you can pass any size array to them.

    void foo(int (&x)[100]);

    This only accepts arrays of 100 integers. You can safely use sizeof on x

    void foo(int & x[100]); // error

    This is parsed as an “array of references” – which isn’t legal.

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