Creating and Using Pointers

Get a pointer from a variable with the & operator:

• If v is a variable, then &v is a pointer referring to all the memory for v.

Get a pointer to part of a composite variable by writing an expression to access that part, then use the & operator.

• If chair is a structure with member legs that is an array of 4 values, then &chair.legs[3] is a pointer to the last leg in the chair.

To access the memory a pointer refers to, use the * operator to turn the pointer into a reference.

• If p is a pointer then *p is a reference to the same memory.

Assignments write to the reference appearing on their left hand side. Otherwise, a reference will be read from.

• *p = 12; writes 12 to the memory locations p points to.
• x = *p; reads the value pointed to by p and writes it to x.