Re: on call by reference

Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> writes:

Johanne Fairchild <jfairchild@tudado.org> writes:
>
   If I understand it right, call-by-reference means the same variable that
   was outside of a procedure call gets passed in to the procedure.  So if
   I assign a new value to it, it /must/ change the value outside because
   it is the /same/ variable.  So I would've expected the analogy to
   somehow say that call-by-reference doesn't let me change socks at all.
>
You would?  You must be completely mis-interpreting my analogy because I
cannot for the life of me figure out how you came to that expectation!
But don't sweat it -- it's just an analogy.  Stick to what I said
first: "x[1] = 4" does not make "x" refer to a different thing.

I didn't understand the analogy.  (I'm slow!)  I have a clue what the
misunderstanding is, but let's leave it alone.  The example is good and
I feel I understand the concept now.  Thank you so much.