cholesky! modifies the matrix in place and returns a very thin wrapper excluding the ignored data. The original binding still has that data though:
julia> using LinearAlgebra
julia> mat = [2.4 2.05
2.05 2.4]
2×2 Array{Float64,2}:
2.4 2.05
2.05 2.4
julia> a = cholesky!(mat)
Cholesky{Float64,Array{Float64,2}}
U factor:
2×2 UpperTriangular{Float64,Array{Float64,2}}:
1.54919 1.32327
⋅ 0.80558
julia> logdet(a)
0.4430819716794719
julia> mat
2×2 Array{Float64,2}:
1.54919 1.32327
2.05 0.80558
Since cholesky! might be called with very large matrices, preserving the existing memory is vital for good performance. Dispatch takes it from there and efficiently works with the wrapper instead of the underlying data.