Pointers and References

Pointer and reference differences

Pointers hold addresses and can be reassigned. References are aliases to existing objects and must be initialized immediately.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    int value = 10;
    int* ptr = &value;
    int& ref = value;

    *ptr = 20;
    ref = 30;
    cout << value << endl; // 30
}

Memory safety mindset

• Prefer smart pointers over raw new/delete in modern C++.
• Use const references to avoid unnecessary copies.
• Avoid dangling pointers by understanding object lifetimes.