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Comments on Are there references in C?

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Are there references in C?

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When reading posts at programming sites such as this one, I frequently encounter people saying things like:

"There is no pass-by-reference in C, everything is passed by value."

People claiming such tend to be of the C++ programmer variety and are used to the C++ syntax distinction between pointers int* and references int&, which doesn't exist in C. And the argument usually goes:

void func (int* x);
...

int* p = &data;
func(p); // here the pointer p is passed by value

And sure, there is no denying that the pointer in this example is passed by value.

Questions: Are there references in C? Is it possible to pass variables by reference in C?

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1 comment thread

What's the point? (2 comments)
What's the point?
matthewsnyder‭ wrote over 1 year ago · edited over 1 year ago

Obviously C pointers can do everything references do. Indeed, what other languages call "references" are just locked down pointers. So do these alleged C++ programmers have an actual point? Aren't they just splitting hairs?

__blackjack__‭ wrote over 1 year ago

The point is that it would not make sense to add references to C in C++ if there are no differences, or even advantages to introduce references in addition to pointers. References give some guarantees that can be leveraged by the compiler. Also the source code might read a bit cleaner without the necessary manually (de)referencing syntax used by the programming language in question. I'm also someone who is splitting this hair — coming from Pascal, not C++. 🙂