Pointers: Pointers concepts

Pointers are variables that hold address of another variable of same data type.

Pointers are one of the most distinct and exciting features of C language. It provides power and flexibility to the language. Although pointer may appear little confusing and complicated in the beginning, but trust me its a powerful tool and handy to use once its mastered.

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Benefit of using pointers

• Pointers are more efficient in handling Array and Structure.
• Pointer allows references to function and thereby helps in passing of function as arguments to other function.
• It reduces length and the program execution time.
• It allows C to support dynamic memory management.

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Concept of Pointer

Whenever a variable is declared, system will allocate a location to that variable in the memory, to hold value. This location will have its own address number.

Let us assume that system has allocated memory location 80F for a variable a.

int a = 10 ;

We can access the value 10 by either using the variable name a or the address 80F. Since the memory addresses are simply numbers they can be assigned to some other variable. The variable that holds memory address are called pointer variables. A pointer variable is therefore nothing but a variable that contains an address, which is a location of another variable. Value of pointer variable will be stored in another memory location.