Chapter 9, Problem 55RQE

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>;

Example for pointer variable declaration:

//definition of pointer variable

int *ptrvar;

Where,

• int is the variable type.
• * ptrvar is the pointer variable name.

Pointer will allow the user to indirectly access and manipulate the data contents of the variable. A pointer variable will hold the address of the data contents.

Note:

• When the symbol “&” is placed prior the pointer variable, it will hold address of the pointer variable.
• When the symbol “*” is placed prior the pointer variable, it will hold the value of the pointer variable.