STEFFL, ERIK (SBCSI) wrote:
erm, sorry, but
why not use pointers
it's dangerous... null pointers, memory leaks etc. tendency is not to use
pointers unless absolutely neccessary...
References in C++ are just pointers in a sugared form. Actually they are
the same thing in a slightly different syntax. There is no memory safety
in C/C++, so you end up having the same risks no matter you use pointers
or references. The difference of the performance probably lies in the
fact that the compiler understands your code better with references,
hence it can do better optimizations. My guess is that references are
easier to optimize against because you don't do pointer arithmetics and
pointer type-casting on references.
Stefan Nitschke wrote:
are different
versions of gcc3 ABI - compatible?
AFAIK all versions of gcc3 except version 3.0 which had a bug are
compatible.
Starting gcc 3.2, they changed the ABI again, so g++ 3.2 produces
incompatible code with 3.1, 3.0, etc. I hope the gcc 3.2 ABI will remain
stable ever after.
liulk