Introduction to pointers in C language

In program, a pointer is a variable that holds the memory address of another variable. In other words, rather than referencing the variable itself, a pointer refers to the variable’s memory location. Pointers are frequently used in C to access memory-mapped devices, pass values by reference, and allocate dynamic memory.

Pointers are declared using an asterisk (*) before the variable name.

Syntax of pointer:

data_type *pointer_name;

Example of declaring pointer:

int *ptr;

The reference operator can be used to assign a pointer’s memory address after it has been declared (&).

Syntax of assigning memory address:

pointer_name = &variable_name;

Example of assigning address:

int x = 5;
int *ptr = &x;

Now, the pointer “ptr” points to the memory location of “x”. We can access the value of “x” through the pointer by dereferencing it using the asterisk (*) operator.

Syntax of dereferencing pointer:

*pointer_name

Example:

printf("%d", *ptr);

The output of this would be the value of “x,” which is 5.

Overall, pointers in the C programming language are a strong tool that enables effective memory management and sending values by reference. To avoid common mistakes like segmentation faults and memory leaks, they must be used carefully.