Why is it impossible to have a reference to void? The only thing I found in the C++ Standard is this line, at 8.3.2.1
A declarator that specifies the type "reference to cv void" is ill-formed.
Why is it that way? Why can't I write a "generic" function that accept a void&?
Just to be clear, I have no useful application in mind where using a reference-to-void could be better than using templates, but I'm just curious about the rationale for forbidding this construct.
To clarify a little, I understand that using a reference-to-void "as is" would be as meaningless as dereferencing a pointer-to-void. However, I could cast it to a reference-to-sometype in order to use it, couldn't I? In fact, I don't see why the following snippet can work...
void foo(void *data)
{
int *i = reinterpret_cast<int*>(data);
// do something with i
}
...while this one cannot:
void foo(void &data)
{
int &i = reinterpret_cast<int&>(data);
// do something with i
}