Aassigning to a reference?

What happens if you assign to a reference? 


You change the referrent (the object to which the reference refers).  Remember: the reference IS the referrent, so changing the reference changes the referrent (a reference is an "Lvalue" [something that can appear on the "L"eft-hand-side of an assignment statement] for the referrent).  This insight can be pushed a bit farther by allowing references to be RETURNED. This allows function calls on the left hand side of an assignment statement, which is useful with operator overloading. 

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