Re: passing char arrays by reference

Keith Thompson said:

Richard Heathfield <rjh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
[...]
To be precise, a pointer /is/ a reference.

In C, yes. There are other contexts in which "pointer" and
"reference" mean different things. (I'm thinking of C++.)

Right. I was referring to clc::reference, not c++->reference.


Note that this does not mean that passing a pointer equates to
pass by reference. It doesn't. You can pass a reference in C, but
you can't pass /by/ reference!

Agreed. But another way to look at it is that passing by
reference is an abstract concept that C doesn't support directly,
but you can *implement* pass-by-reference in C by careful use of
pointers.

How?

Similarly, C doesn't directly support linked lists, but
you can implement linked lists by careful use of pointers.

Linked lists, I'll grant you - but pass-by-reference in C? This I
have to see. :-)

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
.

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