Temporaries and References

The lvalue references must refer to a variable, but C++ has some odd rules when it comes to const references declared on the stack. If the reference is a const, the compiler will extend the lifetime of a temporary for the lifetime of the reference. For example, if you use the initialization list syntax, the compiler will create a temporary:

    const int& cri { 42 };

In this code, the compiler will create a temporary int and initialize it to a value and then alias it to the cri reference (it is important that this reference is const). The temporary is available through the reference while it is in scope. This may look a little odd, but consider using a const reference in this function:

    void use_string(const string& csr);

You can call this function with a string variable, a variable that will explicitly convert to a string or with a string literal:

    string str { "hello" }; 
    use_string(str);      // a std::string object 
    const char *cstr = "hello"; 
    use_string(cstr);     // a C string can be converted to a std::string 
    use_string("hello");  // a literal can be converted to a std::string

In most cases, you'll not want to have a const reference to a built-in type, but with custom types where there will be an overhead in making copies there is an advantage and, as you can see here, the compiler will fall back to creating a temporary if required.