Amperstand in template func.

[tin]

Hi!

A simple quick question here....

In the following template function, whats the purpose of the '&' in the argument of the BridgeIt function? I tried running it without the '&' and got the exact same output!

#include <stdio.h>

template <class T>
int BridgeIt (T& t1) {
return t1+1;
}

int main() {
int a = 3;
printf("A: %d\n", BridgeIt(a));

return 0;
}

-TiN

[hk_mp5kpdw]

It means that the t1 argument is a reference. It all deals with different ways to pass values into function. Look here and check out the section on references midway down the page.

[Laserve]

Consider thise code:

#include <string>
#include <cstdio>

class X
{
    std::string s;
    int x;
public:
    X () {
        s = "a really long string";
        x = 10;
    }

    int operator+(int y)
    {
        return x + y;
    }
};

template<class T>
int BridgeIt(T& t1)
{
    return t1 + 1;
}

int main()
{
    X x;

    std::printf("%d\n", BridgeIt(x));

  return 0;
}

Here we have a class with an int and a string member. The string is very long and copying takes a long time.
The parameter in BridgeIt can have all types, from int and double to complete objects. If the parameters was by value (without &) you can run into performance problems easily because the parameter passed in is copied instead of passed by reference. So, to keep the code as generic as possible it is better to have the template take arguments by reference.