8. References

Question.6

A developer tries to create a reference to a bitfield in a register struct:

struct UART_Status {
   uint8_t tx_ready : 1;
   uint8_t rx_ready : 1;
   uint8_t error    : 1;
   uint8_t reserved : 5;
};

UART_Status status;
uint8_t &tx = status.tx_ready;  // Reference to bitfield

Will this compile?

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Select Answer

Yes — bitfields are struct members like any other
Yes — but only in C++17 and later
No — but only because the types don't match (uint8_t vs bitfield)
No — bitfields don't have unique memory addresses, so references cannot bind to them