|
Home
About the Author
General Programming
Pascal
Delphi
C&C++
Visual Basic
SQL
JAVA Script
Links
| |
[ C Graphics ] [ C Math ] [ C Misc ] [ Common C&C++ Pitfalls ] [ Ponter Tutorial ]
What's a pointer?
A pointtr is a var that stores a memory location.
To declare a pointer, first you must tell the compiler the size of the memory location the
pointer is pointing at. For example, if you want to use a pointer to integer, you have to
declare:
int *p; This means that p stores a memory address of 2 bytes.
When you use a pointer var, the memory allocated is take it from the heap, and when you
use an var type like int x; the memory allocated is from the program stack, so it's better
to use pointers for some cases. (Lets say the stack is the memory reserved for the program
data, and the heap is the rest of memory available).
Using pointers.
I will show this with an example.
int x,y; x,y are integers
int *p; p is a pointer to integer (2 bytes)
.
.
.
x=10;
//now, to makes p points to x mem location, u use the indirection symbol: &
p=&x; //this means that p stores the x address
//and now let's use p to do x=y; (stupid but shows the concept)
y=*p; //the symbol * tells the compiler to take the value in the address that is stored in
p.
//so, y now is 10
//be careful, using * and & incorrectly, may crash your program:
y=&p; //this is not correct!
p=*x; //this is not correct!
Just remember, & means "the address of", and * means "the data stored
in the address".
Pointers and structs
You can make a pointer to point a struct. This reduce
the amount of memory needed from the stack.
struct Points{
int x;
int y;
};
//now we declare a var of the struct type
Points Point;
//a pointer to struct
Points *p;
//to use the struct fields, we use this indirection symbol: ->
p->x=120;
//so, since p points to Point, we have that Point.x is = 120
Now, sometimes, we have a huge struct and the memory is not enought to allocate it in the
stack.
So, we can use pointers to allocate the struct in the heap. To allocate this memory, we
use the operator: new.
Example:
Points *q;
q=new Points;
//now, u can do this
q->x=100;
q->y=120;
Void pointers
Void pointers can't be deferenced without use casting. Using casting tells the compiler
the size of the var that the pointer is pointing at.
int x;
float y;
void *p; //void pointer
p=&x; //points to var x
*p=12; //incorrect! the compiler doesn't know the size of pointed data (because the
pointer is declared as void)
//casting
*(int *)p=12; //correct, we are telling the compiler that p is pointing to a int * type
(pointer to integer)
p=&y;
*(float *)p=123.24;
//As you can see, the same pointer can be used to point to different data types.
Without void pointers, we must declare 2 pointers.
int *p; //to points to x
float *q; //to points to y
| |
| Newsgroups |
comp.lang.c
comp.lang.c++
comp.programming |
|