When a class variable is said to reference an object, what is actually stored in the class variable?

A class variable is a variable that belongs to a class rather than an instance of the class. It is shared among all instances of the class and is declared at the class level. When we say a class variable references an object, it means the class variable holds the memory address of that object. Thus, the actual object is stored in a different memory location, while the class variable contains the reference (memory address) to that object.

An object reference is a way to access an object in memory. In object-oriented programming languages like Python or Java, when we create an object, it is stored in a memory location. The reference to this memory location is given by the object reference. This allows us to access the object's attributes and methods without directly working with the actual object.

When a class variable is said to reference an object, it means the class variable holds the memory address where the object is stored. This allows us to use the class variable to access the object's attributes and methods. It is important to note that multiple class variables can reference the same object if they hold the same memory address.

Let's consider a simple example in Python: ``` class MyClass: shared_object = [] obj1 = MyClass() obj2 = MyClass() obj1.shared_object.append(1) print(obj2.shared_object) ``` In this example, we have a class MyClass with a class variable `shared_object` that references an empty list. We then create two instances of MyClass, obj1, and obj2. When we append the number 1 to the list using obj1.shared_object.append(1), we are actually modifying the shared object that both obj1 and obj2 reference. This is why when we print obj2.shared_object, we see the updated list containing the number 1. In conclusion, when a class variable is said to reference an object, what is actually stored in the class variable is the memory address of the object. This allows us to access the object and its attributes and methods using the class variable.