PointersL24

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 1

Objectives
• To learn and appreciate the following concepts:

• Pointers – declaration and initialization

• To access a variable through its pointer

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 2

Session outcome
• At the end of session one will be able to:

Understand the overall ideology of pointers

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 3

Pointers - Concept
• Consider the following statement

int Quantity =50;

- Compiler will allocate a memory location for Quantity

and places the value in that location. Suppose the
address of that location is 5000, then

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 4

Pointers - Concept
 During Execution of the program, the system always
associates the name quantity with the address 5000.

 We may have access to the value 50 by using either the

name of the variable quantity or the address 5000.

 Since memory addresses are simply numbers, they can be

assigned to some variables which can be stored in memory,
like any other variable.

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 5

Pointer

-A memory location or a variable which stores the

address of another variable in memory

-Commonly used in C than in many other languages (such

as BASIC, Pascal, and certainly Java, which has no
pointers).

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 6

Declaring and initializing pointers
Syntax:
data_type * pt_name;

This tells the compiler 3 things about the pt_name:

 The asterisk(*) tells the variable pt_name is a

pointer variable.
 pt_name needs a memory location.
 pt_name points to a variable of type data_ type

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 7

Accessing the address of a variable
int Quantity=50 ;
• To assign the address 5000 (the location of quantity) to a
variable p, we can write:
int *p = &Quantity ;
Such variables that hold memory addresses are called
Pointer Variables.

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 8

Pointers Concept

The Address-of Operator &

• To find the address occupied by a variable

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 9

 Program to illustrate the address of operator
Output:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() 0x29feec
{ 0x29fee8
0x29fee4
int var1 = 11;
int var2 = 22;
int var3 = 33;

//print the addresses of these variables

printf(“%x”,&var1);
printf(“%x”,&var2);
printf(“%x”,&var3);

return 0;
}
11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 10
Declaring and initializing pointers
Example:
int *p; //declares a variable p as a pointer variable
that points to an integer data type.

float *x; //declares x as a pointer to floating point

variable.

• Once a pointer variable has been declared, it can be made

to point to a variable using an assignment statement :

int quantity = 10;

p = &quantity; // p now contains the address of quantity.
This is known as pointer initialization.

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 11

Summary till now …

int v; //defines variable v of type int

int* p; //defines p as a pointer to int

p = &v; //assigns address of variable v to pointer p

Now…
v = 3; //assigns 3 to v

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 12

To be taken care …
 Before a pointer is initialized, it should not be used.
 We must ensure that the pointer variables always
point to the corresponding type of data.
 Assigning an absolute address to a pointer variable is
prohibited. i.e p=5000
 A pointer variable can be initialized in its declaration
itself.
Example:
int x, *p=&x; //declares x as an
integer
variable and then initializes
p to the address of x.

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 13

To be taken care …
The statement

int *p = & x, x; not valid.

i.e target variable ‘x’ must be declared first.

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 14

 Accessing variable through a pointer
• A variable’s value can be accessed by its pointer using
unary operator *(asterisk) known as indirection operator.

Consider the following statements:

int quantity, *p, n; // 2 int variables & 1 integer pointer
quantity =50; // assigns value 50 to quantity
p=&quantity; // assigns the address of quantity to p
n=*p; // contains the indirection operator *

* Operator - value at address operator

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 15

 Example – Accessing variable through a pointer
#include <stdio.h>
Output :
int main() 11
{ 22
int var1 = 11; //two integer variables
int var2 = 22;
int *ptr; //pointer to integer

ptr = &var1; //pointer points to var1

printf(“%d”,*ptr); //print contents of pointer (11)

ptr = &var2; //pointer points to var2

printf(“%d”,*ptr); //print contents of pointer (22)

return 0;
11/06/2023
} CSE 1001 Department of CSE 16
Example - Accessing via pointers.
#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{

int var1, var2; //two integer variables

int *ptr; //pointer to integers

ptr = &var1; //set pointer to address of var1

*ptr = 37; //same as var1=37 ( Dereferencing)
var2 = *ptr; //same as var2=var1
printf(“%d”, var2); //verify var2 is 37

return 0;
}
11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 17
 Reference and dereference operators

 & is the ‘reference’ operator and can be read as "address

of"

 * is the ‘dereference’ operator and can be read as “value

at address” or "value pointed by"

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 18

Example- understanding pointers
#include <iostream>
using namespace std; Output :
int main() firstvalue is 10
{ secondvalue is 20
int firstvalue = 5, secondvalue = 15;
int * p1, * p2;
p1 = &firstvalue; // p1 = address of firstvalue
p2 = &secondvalue; // p2 = address of secondvalue
*p1 = 10; // value pointed by p1 = 10
*p2 = *p1; // value pointed by p2 = value pointed by p1
p1 = p2; // p1 = p2 (value of pointer is copied)
*p1 = 20; // value pointed by p1 = 20
Printf(“firstvalue is %d”, firstvalue);
Printf(“secondvalue is %d”, secondvalue);

return 0;
} 11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 19
Summary
• Pointer concept

• Reference operator &

• Dereference operator *

11/06/2023 CSE 1001 Department of CSE 20