# Reference types - How to differentiate "reference" with "address of a variable"

```
int num = 3;

int &refNum = num; // ampersand & is on the left hand side of the assignment
                   // this is reference to variable num
                   // is an alias to num 
                   // address of num and refNum should be the same when ouput
                   // cout << &refNum << and << &num
                   // any change in num (e.g num ++ ) will affect refNum and inversly,
                   // any change in refNum (e.g refNum++) will affect num

int *pNum = &num;  // ampersand & is on the right hand side of the assignment
                   // this is for taking the address of variable num
```

So how to differentiate in which case, & is used as an alias (reference) or to take the address of a variable? Let's have a look on the above code
