return reference

I know how item_array[2] becomes 0 but i don't know why. since array[] is not a reference to item_array[2] how does the function biggest, which returns a reference to array[bigges], assign 0 to item_array[2]???

could someone please explain this to me, thank you.

Code:

#include <iostream>

int& biggest(int array[], int n_elements){

	int index;
	int biggest;
	
	biggest = 0;
	
	for(index = 1; index < n_elements; ++index){
		if(array[biggest] < array[index])
			biggest = index;
	}
		return(array[biggest]);
}
	
int main(){
	
	using namespace std;
	
	int item_array[5] = {1, 2, 5000, 3, 4};
	
	
	cout << "The biggest element is " << biggest(item_array, 5) << endl;
	biggest(item_array, 5) = 0;

	cout << item_array[2] << endl;
	
	return 0;
}

when it is returning it is returning a value..array[biggest] is the same thing as a variable name...so it is returning array[2] which contains 5000...it returns a reference to it..so when you do

Code:

biggest(item_array, 5) = 0;

it sets array[2] = 0;
remember the reason this work with your arrays because arrays are very similar to pointers....when you pass an array to a function you are actually passing the address of the array pointing to the first element so you could have done pointer notation like '*(array + 2) == array[2]'....if you do this with normal variables you are just returning a local variable which is a no-no!..