title: Passing a const parameter by reference in vb.net
body: <blockquote>
    <p><strong>Possible Duplicate:</strong><br>
    <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/389426/references-in-vb-net">References in VB.Net</a>  </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  
  
  <p>I want to pass a medium large Customer db object, but I don't want to pass it by value, because I think it would be unnecessary.</p>
  
  <p>In c++ when you had a large object it was inefficient to pass it by value, because a copy was created from it, so you passed it by reference so that there was no copy (of the object passed) created. I used to pass the parameter as a constant because that way if I tried to change the object inside the function the compiler wouldn't let me so that I wouldn't harm the passed object (because it was passed by reference). Is it possible to mimick this in vb.net or is it not needed?</p>