Pass-by-value vs pass-by-reference vs pass-by-value-result

I've got this question, and I'm a bit confused as to what would be printed, especially for pass-by-reference. What value would be passed to x if there are two parameters? Thanks!

Consider the following program. For each of the following parameter-passing methods, what is printed?

a. Passed by value

b. Passed by reference

c. Passed by value-result

void main()
{ int x = 5; foo (x,x); print (x);
}
void foo (int a, int b)
{ a = 2 * b + 1; b = a - 1; a = 3 * a - b;
}

1 Answer

The first two should be pretty straightforward, the last one is probably throwing you because it's not really a C++ supported construct. It's something that had been seen in Fortran and Ada some time ago. See this post for more info

As for your results, I think this is what you would get:

1)

5

2)

x = 5,
a = 2 * 5 + 1 = 11
b = 11 - 1 = 10
a = 3 * 10 - 10 = 20; // remember, a and b are the same reference!
x = 20

3) Consider this (in C++ style). We will copy x into a variable, pass that by reference, and then copy the result back to x:

void main()
{ int x = 5; int copy = x; foo (copy,copy); // copy is passed by reference here, for sake of argument x = copy; print (x);
}

Since nothing in the foo function is doing anything with x directly, your result will be the same as in #2.

Now, if we had something like this for foo

void foo (int a, int b)
{ a = 2 * b + 1; x = a - 1; // we'll assume x is globally accessible a = 3 * a - b;
}

Then # 2 would produce the same result, but #3 would come out like so:

a = 2 * 5 + 1 = 11
x = 11 - 1 = 10 // this no longer has any effect on the final result
a = 3 * 11 - 11 = 22
x = 22