References

References

Often times in object-oriented-languages, referencing rules are complicated and inconsistent. FastCode aims to provide a consistent, simple referencing system that also conforms to most programming practices.

What does reference even mean?

When a value is passed by reference, that means the receiving variable's value will echo the value you passed by reference, and vice versa.

For example, if we set the variable a to a reference of the variable b,

a = ref b

and assign a value to a

a = 7

that same value has also been assigned to b and every other value that references either a or b.

print(b) //outputs 7

It also works the other way around. If we assign a value to b,

b = 13

it will also be assigned to a and every other value that references either a or b.

print(a) //outputs 13

What gets passed by reference and what doesn't?

Any procedure argument or value with a reference data type (see value types for further reading) gets passed by reference automatically. Otherwise (in the case of all primitives unless specified), each value is cloned beforehand.