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Pointers Notes

Pointers in C are variables that store memory addresses of other variables. They allow accessing and modifying the values of other variables indirectly. Pointers must be declared with a data type and are initialized by assigning the address of another variable using the & operator. Dereferencing a pointer using * accesses the value at its stored address. Pointers can be set to NULL to indicate they do not currently point to a valid memory location.

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Ankur Batta
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221 views

Pointers Notes

Pointers in C are variables that store memory addresses of other variables. They allow accessing and modifying the values of other variables indirectly. Pointers must be declared with a data type and are initialized by assigning the address of another variable using the & operator. Dereferencing a pointer using * accesses the value at its stored address. Pointers can be set to NULL to indicate they do not currently point to a valid memory location.

Uploaded by

Ankur Batta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Pointers

Pointers in C are easy and fun to learn. Some C programming tasks are performed more
easily with pointers, and other tasks, such as dynamic memory allocation, cannot be
performed without using pointers. So it becomes necessary to learn pointers to become a
perfect C programmer. Let's start learning them in simple and easy steps.
As you know, every variable is a memory location and every memory location has its
address defined which can be accessed using ampersand (&) operator, which denotes an
address in memory. Consider the following example, which will print the address of the
variables defined:
#include <stdio.h>
int main ()
{
int var1;
char var2[10];
printf("Address of var1 variable: %x\n", &var1 );
printf("Address of var2 variable: %x\n", &var2 );
return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces result something as follows:
Address of var1 variable: bff5a400
Address of var2 variable: bff5a3f6
So you understood what is memory address and how to access it, so base of the concept is
over. Now let us see what is a pointer.
What Are Pointers?
A pointer is a variable whose value is the address of another variable, i.e., direct address of
the memory location. Like any variable or constant, you must declare a pointer before you
can use it to store any variable address. The general form of a pointer variable declaration is:
type *var-name;
Here, type is the pointer's base type; it must be a valid C data type and var-name is the
name of the pointer variable. The asterisk * you used to declare a pointer is the same asterisk

that you use for multiplication. However, in this statement the asterisk is being used to
designate a variable as a pointer. Following are the valid pointer declaration:
int

*ip;

/* pointer to an integer */

double *dp; /* pointer to a double */


float *fp;

/* pointer to a float */

char *ch

/* pointer to a character */

The actual data type of the value of all pointers, whether integer, float, character, or
otherwise, is the same, a long hexadecimal number that represents a memory address. The
only difference between pointers of different data types is the data type of the variable or
constant that the pointer points to.
How to use Pointers?
There are few important operations, which we will do with the help of pointers very
frequently. (a) we define a pointer variable (b) assign the address of a variable to a pointer
and (c) finally access the value at the address available in the pointer variable. This is done
by using unary operator * that returns the value of the variable located at the address
specified by its operand. Following example makes use of these operations:
#include <stdio.h>
int main ()
{
int var = 20; /* actual variable declaration */
int *ip;

/* pointer variable declaration */

ip = &var; /* store address of var in pointer variable*/


printf("Address of var variable: %x\n", &var );
/* address stored in pointer variable */
printf("Address stored in ip variable: %x\n", ip );
/* access the value using the pointer */
printf("Value of *ip variable: %d\n", *ip );
return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces result something as follows:
Address of var variable: bffd8b3c

Address stored in ip variable: bffd8b3c


Value of *ip variable: 20
NULL Pointers in C
It is always a good practice to assign a NULL value to a pointer variable in case you do not
have exact address to be assigned. This is done at the time of variable declaration. A pointer
that is assigned NULL is called a null pointer.
The NULL pointer is a constant with a value of zero defined in several standard libraries.
Consider the following program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main ()
{
int *ptr = NULL;
printf("The value of ptr is : %x\n", ptr );
return 0;
}
When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result:
The value of ptr is 0
On most of the operating systems, programs are not permitted to access memory at address 0
because that memory is reserved by the operating system. However, the memory address 0
has special significance; it signals that the pointer is not intended to point to an accessible
memory location. But by convention, if a pointer contains the null (zero) value, it is assumed
to point to nothing.
To check for a null pointer you can use an if statement as follows:
if(ptr)

/* succeeds if p is not null */

if(!ptr)

/* succeeds if p is null */

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