Ref parameter: intended behavior or bug?
Mike Parker
aldacron71 at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 22 16:56:01 PDT 2007
Regan Heath wrote:
>
> I think the concept of passing by reference is that when you pass by ref
> the parameter _is_ the original variable in every possible way. The
> compiler might be using a proxy object to implement this, it might not
> be, IANACW. As such when you ask for the size of a ref parameter you're
> asking for the size of the original variable, which in this case is the
> size of the struct itself.
Yeah, I get it, but it still /feels/ inconsistent to me. If the size of
a class reference is 4 bytes, then it seems to me that the size of a ref
parameter should be the same and not the size of the object to which it
refers. But I suppose we aren't supposed to think of a ref parameter as
a true reference, but rather as a mutable view of the original data. In
which case, 'inout' seems more appropriate, in retrospect, than 'ref'.
OK, misconception cleared, situation grokked.
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