Problem writing swap using pointers

The assignment is simple: Write a function template with the following declaration:

Code:

template <class S>
void swap( S *a, S *b );

So, I wrote the easy little function like so:

Code:

template <class S>
void swap( S *a, S *b )
{
  S temp = *a;
  *a = *b;
  *b = temp;
}

The problem is when I try to call it like so:

Code:

int a=1, b=2;
swap(a, b);

The compiler says that there's no matching function, swap(int&, int&). I did get the function to work if I called it like this:

Code:

swap(&a, &b);

That makes sense, I suppose, but it seems very inconveinent. I'm used to passing the arguments as reference parameters and then just calling it like swap(a, b).

Do I need to call the assigned function as swap(&a, &b) all the time, or is there something else I'm missing?

well, your function is asking for a pointer, so logically, you would have to pass a pointer and not be able to just pass a straight int value.