All about Pointers

Let us discuss everything about pointers, starting from basic definition to each and every error that generally occurs while doing programming in c++ through this thread


I am sure it will help a lot of students

No reply so far

come on guys ,didn't you find any problem while working with pointers?If yes, then share it

Pointer is a variable which holds address of another variable

Thank you Goyal for starting this thread.
Everyone learning C or C++ faces problems with pointers at the beginner level.

Could someone start with explaining the basics of pointers and their various forms?

Pointers have some relation with with 1D and 2D arrays. I'm quoting the example of a C++ program.

void main()
{
int a[5];    //creating an integer array to store upto 5 integers
cout<This was the case of static sized arrays ie size of the array is known at the compile time. 

eg:- consider the following code-->

//this is okay
const int size=5;   //creating a constant variable
int a[size];

//but this is wrong
int size=5;
int a[size];
 so to create dynamic arrays (eg when size has to be known from the user), we make use of pointers as-->

int size;
int *a;   //uninitialized pointer
cout<<"Enter the size of the array: ";
cin>>size;   //got the array size from the user
a=new int[size];  //a can now hold upto 'size' number of variables

//now the elements of 'a' can be accessed in any of the 2 ways discussed above.
Also there is a difference between int a=new int[size]; and int a=new int(size);

int a=new int[size]; will create an array 'a' of size/length='size'.

but int a=new int(size); will create an int variable ie only 2 bytes will be allocated to 'a' whose value or memory content will be='size'.





PS: It's been very long that I've revised my C++ concepts. If anyone finds any error or ambiguity, please do let me know.😀 Will try to post the maximum of my knowledge about pointers.😛