C++ References

A reference variable is a "reference" to an existing variable, and it is created with the & operator:

string food = "Pizza";  // food variable
string &meal = food;    // reference to food

Now, we can use either the variable name food or the reference name meal to refer to the food variable.

Memory Address

In the example above, the & operator was used to create a reference variable. But it can also be used to get the memory address of a variable; which is the location of where the variable is stored on the computer.

When a variable is created in C++, a memory address is assigned to the variable. And when we assign a value to the variable, it is stored in this memory address.