Reference as a data member of a class

Can I have a reference as a data member of a class? If yes, then how do I initialise it?

Ans: 

Yes, we can have a reference as a data member of a class. A reference as a data member of a  class is initialised in the initialisation list of the constructor. This is shown in following program.

                             #include

                             class sample                              {
                             private :
                             int& i ;
                             public :
                             sample ( int& ii ) : i ( ii )
                             {                              }
                             void show( )                              {
                             cout << i << endl ;
                             }
                             } ;
                             void main( )                              {
                             int j = 10 ;                              sample s ( j ) ;                              s.show( ) ;
                             }

Here, i refers to a variable j allocated on the stack. A point to note here is that we cannot bind a reference to an object passed to the constructor as a value. If we do so, then the reference i  would refer to the function parameter (i.e. parameter ii in the constructor), which would  disappear as soon as the function returns, thereby creating a situation of dangling reference.