C++ initial value of reference to non-const must be an lvalue

Question

I\'m trying to send value into function using reference pointer but it gave me a completely non-obvious error to me

#include \"stdafx.h\"
#include 

        

Answer 1

The &nKByte creates a temporary value, which cannot be bound to a reference to non-const.

You could change void test(float *&x) to void test(float * const &x) or you could just drop the pointer altogether and use void test(float &x); /*...*/ test(nKByte);.

Answer 2

When you call test with &nKByte, the address-of operator creates a temporary value, and you can't normally have references to temporary values because they are, well, temporary.

Either do not use a reference for the argument, or better yet don't use a pointer.

Answer 3

When you pass a pointer by a non-const reference, you are telling the compiler that you are going to modify that pointer's value. Your code does not do that, but the compiler thinks that it does, or plans to do it in the future.

To fix this error, either declare x constant

// This tells the compiler that you are not planning to modify the pointer
// passed by reference
void test(float * const &x){
    *x = 1000;
}

or make a variable to which you assign a pointer to nKByte before calling test:

float nKByte = 100.0;
// If "test()" decides to modify `x`, the modification will be reflected in nKBytePtr
float *nKBytePtr = &nKByte;
test(nKBytePtr);