system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are "Pointer" and "Reference" exactly the same thing?
gpt
Not really. Many people will reserve the term 'pointer' for a numeric variable that references memory, as in C and C++ where you can interpret the pointer as a number and perform arithmetic (increment/decrement, etc) on it. Whereas a 'reference' does not require, or more narrowly specifically lacks, that numeric character and cannot be subjected to arithmetic operations. So you may hear people saying that C only has pointers, Java only has references, and C++ has both pointers and references, even though in some sense the references in Java and C++ work a lot like pointers and permit many of the same sorts of interactions.