Getting address of object pointed by reference

Question

I'd like to enforce that an object should exist before passing it to a function:

void Class::setStoredObject(MustExist& obj) {
  stored_object = &obj;
}

// Lifetime of ptr is my responsibility
std::unique_ptr<MustExist> ptr = std::make_unique<MustExist>();
classObject.setStoredObject(*ptr);

anyway I also need to store that object (big one) by reference or address so I usually grab a pointer to it.

Is this safe to do? I.e. getting the address of a reference to refer to the original pointed-to object.

Alternatively, any other/better way that I could achieve this?

Answer 1

There's nothing wrong with this, per se. Of course, if the original object goes out of scope and gets destroyed, the saved pointer to the object will no longer be valid.