Memory and Reference.
Memory
Computer memory is a collection of different consecutive memory location . These memory locations are numbered locations are numbered sequentially. Each variable is created at a unique location in memory location is known as address.
Reference
A reference is the act of mentioning of something in writing to back up a statement of information. A reference is the value that enables a program to indirect access a particular data, such as variable value record , in the computer memory or some other storage.
A program may declare many variables for different tasks, A variable declaration reserves specific amount of space in memory for a particular variable. The variable name is used to refer to the memory location. it allows the user to access a value in the memory. The computer refers to the memory using an address.
A variable declaration association following three attributes to a variable.
- Variable name
- Variable type
- Variable memory address
int a;
The name of variable is a and data type of variable is int. The address of the variable is unknown . Computer creates the variable at any available location in the memory. The memory address ins hexadecimal number that refers to a particular location in the memory
The variable is created in the memory as follows/
0x0065fdf0
Int
a
The above box represent the memory location allocated for the variable a. The hexadecimal value above the box is its assumed address. The variable will occupy 2 bytes or 4 bytes in memory depending on the type of computer.
The actual address of the variable can be displayed by using reference operator &.
It is also known as address operator. The reference operator is used to access the memory address of a variable . The following statement will displayed the address of a.
example
#include<iostream.h>
#include<conio.h>
voide main()
{
int n =12;
cout<<" The value of n: "<< n<<endl;
cout<<"The address of n:"<<&n<<endl;
getch();
}
