in C++: Is const reference means “read-only view of” or it requires immutability of object being referenced?

Question

The question can be formulated by example as following: is this snippet of code valid?

int a = 1;
const int& ca = a;
++a; //< Q: Is this valid?
cout &         


        

Answer 1

It is valid code, because a is not const. A const reference means you cannot modify the refered-to object via the reference.