Pass by reference syntax

Question

In the c++ tutorial, it uses something like:

void func(int *x){
*x = 20;
}

int main (){
int x = 5;
func(&x);
cout << x;
}

as an example of pass by reference instead of pass by value. Does this code do the same thing?

void func(int &x){
x=20;
}

int main (){
int x = 5;
func(x);
cout << x;
}

What's the difference between the two? I know in the first one passes the address of x and the function is the pointer of x and changes x by dereference. But then how does the second one change the value of x?

Answer 1

References are implemented using pointers internally but are "safer". They are like aliases .