Chapter 10, Problem 23RQE

Program Plan Intro

Pointer:

Pointer, the name itself references the purpose of the pointer. Pointers point to a location in memory.

• Pointer is a special type of variable to store the address of the memory location, which can be accessed later.
• If an asterisk “*” operator is present before the variable, then that variable is referred as pointer variable.
  • It is also called as dereferencing or indirection operator.
• Pointer is just a type of variable that stores the addresses of other variables.
• Using pointers, we can access the address of a variable; the data stored in that variable can be retrieved.

Syntax of pointer variable declaration:

<variable-type> *<variable-name>;

Pointer to constant variable:

Pointer to constants can be used in a situation when an address of a constant item is passed to a pointer such that no modification can be made to those variables.

• The data contents of the pointer cannot be changed, but the address of the pointer can be changed.
• Value of the pointer remains constant throughout the execution.
• The Syntax of Pointer to constant variable is given below:

const <variable-type> *<variable-name>;

Example:

const double *pointer;

• In above statement, “pointer” is a pointer variable which is points to const double.