Introduction to Pointers

Snippet

Introduction to Pointers

A pointer is a variable that stores the memory address of another variable, not its value. The asterisk (*) declares a pointer type. The ampersand (&) operator gets the memory address of a variable. To access the value at the address a pointer points to, use the dereference operator (*). This is fundamental for understanding memory management in C++.

snippet.cpp

cpp

#include <iostream>
 
int main() {
    int number = 42;
    int* ptr = &number;
    
    std::cout << "Value: " << number << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Address: " << ptr << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Dereferenced: " << *ptr << std::endl;
    
    return 0;
}

Breakdown

int number = 42;

Regular integer variable with value 42

int* ptr = &number;

Pointer to int, stores address of number variable

*ptr

Dereference operator accesses the value at the address (42)

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