title: What is a constant reference? (not a reference to a constant)
body: <p>Why do constant references not behave the same way as constant pointers, so that I can actually change the object they are pointing to? They really seem like another plain variable declaration. Why would I ever use them?</p>
  <p>This is a short example that I run which compiles and runs with no errors:</p>
  <pre><code>int main (){
      int i=0;
      int y=1;    
      int&amp;const icr=i;
      icr=y;          // Can change the object it is pointing to so it's not like a const pointer...
      icr=99;         // Can assign another value but the value is not assigned to y...
      int x=9;
      icr=x;
      cout&lt;&lt;&quot;icr: &quot;&lt;&lt;icr&lt;&lt;&quot;, y:&quot;&lt;&lt;y&lt;&lt;endl; 
  }
  </code></pre>