C++ by-reference argument and C linkage

Question

I have encountered a working (with XLC8 and MSFT9 compilers) piece of code, containing a C++ file with a function defined with C linkage and a reference argument. This bugs

Answer 1

That's what Bjarne Stroustrup has to say about references:

"Most references are implements are implemented using a pointer variable; that it a reference usually takes up one word of memory. However, a reference that is used purely locally can - and often is - eliminated by the optimizer".

For example:

 struct S 
 { 
    int a;
    int b[100]; 
 };  // just an example

 void do_something(const vector& v)
 {
    for (int i=0; i

In this case, p needs not be stored in memory (maybe it just exists in a register, maybe it disappears into the instructions).