Ccpp Pointers — Free C Cpp Tutorial
Learn Ccpp Pointers in C Cpp with a free, beginner-friendly tutorial, examples and practice for Indian students on Syllab.in.
TL;DR: Learn Ccpp Pointers in C Cpp with a free, beginner-friendly tutorial, examples and practice for Indian students on Syllab.in.
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Ccpp Pointers in C Cpp
A pointer is a variable that stores the memory address of another variable. `int *p = &x;` makes p hold the address of x (& is the "address-of" operator). Dereferencing with *p reads or writes the value stored at that address. Pointers are what make C powerful and fast — and what make it dangerous if misused.
The biggest practical use: pass-by-reference. Because C passes copies, a function that must modify a caller's variable takes a pointer to it. Inside, *p = value writes through the pointer to the original. This is how swap(), and functions that return multiple results, work.
A pointer that points nowhere valid (NULL, or a freed/uninitialised address) must never be dereferenced — that is the infamous "segmentation fault". Always initialise pointers, check for NULL, and set a pointer to NULL after freeing it.
Ccpp Pointers — Syntax
int x = 10; int *p = &x; // p holds address of x *p = 20; // now x == 20
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