Pointers in C Language

Introduction

Pointers are a part of the C language and make the C language more powerful. The following arre some features ot them:

  • A pointer mainly represents a data structure.
  • It changes values of an actual argument passed to the function (“call by reference”).
  • It is also for working with memory allocation dynamically.
  • It is efficiently used with integer arrays and character arrays.
  • A pointer always stores a memory address, not data values.
  • A pointer holds the value aa an address.

Declaration

A pointer variable must be declared before use. The syntax for a pointer declaration is as follows.

    Int *a;
    Double *b;

Now a is a “pointer to an integer”and b is a “pointer to a double”.

The prefix * defines the variable as a pointer.

Example

  1. Int *a;  
  2. Int b;  
  3. a=&b;  
Here a contains the memory address of the variable b.

Arithmetic operation are limited to the following for pointers:
  1. Integers and pointers can be added and subtracted.
  2. Incremented and decremented
  3. In addition, pointers can be assigned to each other

Example

  1. Int *a,*b;  
  2. a=a+5;  
  3. b=a;  
Call by Reference

Using call by reference means that a parameter is sent to the function in the form of an address location.
  1. #include<stdio.h>  
  2. Void swap(int *p , int *q);  
  3. main()  
  4. {  
  5.    Int i=3,j=5;  
  6.    swap( &I , &j ); //sentind address of I and j variables  
  7.    printf("After swap, i=%d j=%d\n" ,I ,j );  
  8.    getch();  
  9.    return 0;  
  10. }  
  11. Void swap(int *p, int *q)  
  12. {   
  13.    Int temp;   
  14.    temp=*p;   
  15.    *p=*q;  
  16.    *q=temp;  
  17. }  
Output

    After swap, I=5 j=3

Pointers and arrays

A pointer always contains the base address of the memory location that makes up an entire array.

Declaration

    Scanf(“%s” ,name);

Example

  1. Int a[5];
  2. a[5]=10;
  3. *(a+5)=56;

All of those are the same thing.

Examples

    1. Int a[100] , I , *p , sum=0;    
    2. for (i=0 ; i<100 ;++I )     
    3. Sum += a[i];  
    1. int a[100] , I , *p , sum=0;  
    2. for (i=0 ; i<100 ; ++I )  
    3. Sum += *( a + I ); 
    1. int a[100] , I , *p , sum=0;    
    2. for ( p=a ; p<&a[100] ; ++p )     
    3. sum += *p;  
    The following shows an array as function arguments:
    1. double sum(double *dp , int n )  
    2. {  
    3.    Int I ;  
    4.    Double res=0.0 ;  
    5.    for ( i=0 ; i<n ; ++I )  
    6.    res += *( dp + I ) ;  
    7.    return res;  
    8. }  

That function needs a starting address in the array and the number of elements to be summed together.

Pointers and Character Strings

  1. #include<stdio.h>  
  2. main()  
  3. {  
  4.    Char *cp ;   
  5.    cp = "Neeraj Kumar";   
  6.    printf("%c\n" , *cp );  
  7.    printf("%c\n" , *( cp + 7 ));  
  8.    return 0;  
  9. }  
Output

    N
    K

We can use pointers to work with character strings. The value of the string constant address is the base address of the character array.

Thank you.


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