Pointers

Explanation

• a is in integer variable
• p is a pointer to integer

'&' , '*' and '->' operators

• The addresss of operator '&' returns the address of a variable
• '*' is the dereference operator (also called indirection operator) used to get the value of a given address.
• '->' is the arrow operator which is used to get value from structure which is declared as a pointer.

                        

                            int a = 76;
                            int *ptra = &a;
                            printf("The address of a is %p", ptra);
                            //%p → no. in hexadecimal, so as address are in hexadecimal value.
                            printf("The value of a is %d",*ptra);
                        
                    

NULL pointer

• A pointer that is not assigned any value but NULL is known as the NULL pointer
• In computer programming a null pointer is a pointer that does not point to any abject or function
• We can use it to initialize a pointer variable when that pointer variable isn't assigned any valid memeory address yet.
• int *ptr = NULL;

                        

                            int ptr2;
                            printf("%p",ptr2); //62374678 garbage value
                            int *ptr2 = NULL:
                            printf("%p",ptr2); //0000000 
                        
                    

Use of pointer

Want to use these three but we can't use array instead we can make link list and using node we can point address of each other then we can do traversing and searching.