Pointers in C – Declare, initialize and use

Pointers are the heart of C programming. It is the most distinct feature of C, which provides power and flexibility to C. Pointers separates C from other programming languages.

C programmers make extensive use of pointers, because of their numerous benefits. Below are some advantages of pointers.

• Pointers are more efficient in handling arrays and structures.
• Pointers are used to return multiple values from a function.
• We use pointers to get reference of a variable or function.
• Pointer allows dynamic memory allocation (creation of variables at runtime) in C. Which undoubtedly is the biggest advantage of pointers.
• Pointers increases execution speed of program.

Pointers are closely related to low level memory operations. Hence, let us first understand memory in contrast to C programming.

Understanding memory

Computer memory ( RAM ) is a collection of contiguous block of bytes. Where individual block is called as cell (memory cell). Each cell has a unique numeric address (also known as physical memory address) associated with it. These addresses starts from zero and runs up to maximum memory size (in bytes).

For example, memory location of a 64KB RAM starts from 0 and ends to 65536 (or 0x10000) bytes.

Before I formally introduce pointers let us first see what happens during a variable definition.
Consider the statement int num = 10;

• For the above statement, the C compiler allocates memory capable to store an integer. Let say memory is allocated at address 0x1200 .
• After memory allocation, the C compiler defines a label (variable name) to access the memory location. The label is mapped to the allocated memory.
• Finally, the constant 10 is stored at 0x1200 . Whenever you refer num inside your program, internally C refers to the memory location of num .

What is a pointer?

A pointer is a variable that stores memory address. If it is a variable, it must have a valid C data type. Yes, every pointer variable has a data type associated with it. Which means an integer pointer can hold only integer variable addresses.

Note: We never say pointer stores or holds a memory location. Instead, we say pointer points to a memory location. So from now always use the language pointer points to a memory location.

Reference operator &

Because we are dealing with memory addresses, we must know how to get memory address of a variable. We use unary & (reference of) operator to get memory address of a variable. Reference operator is also known as address of operator.

Syntax to use reference of operator

Example program to use reference operator

/** * C program to get memory address of a variable */ #include int main() < int num = 10; printf("Value of num = %d\n", num); /* &num gets the address of num. */ printf("Address of num = %d\n", &num); printf("Address of num in hexadecimal = %x", &num); return 0; >

Output

Value of num = 10 Address of num = 6356748 Address of num in hexadecimal = 60ff0c 

Note: Output of above program may vary on your machine.

Dereference operator *

Once you have a memory address, you must be willing to get value stored at that memory address, for that we need to dereference the memory address.

Dereferencing is the process of retrieving value at memory location pointed by a pointer. We use unary * dereference operator to get value pointed by a memory address. Dereference operator is also known as indirection operator.

Syntax to use dereference operator

*memory-address-or-pointer-variable;

Example program to use dereference operator

/** * C program to use dereference operator */ #include int main() < int num = 10; printf("Value of num = %d\n", num); /* &num gets the address of num. */ printf("Address of num = %d\n", &num); /* * &num gets the address of num * and (*(&num)) gets value pointed by (&num) */ printf("Value of num = %d\n", *(&num)); return 0; >

How to declare pointer variable

Once you got basics of memory addresses, reference and dereference operator. Let us declare our first pointer variable.

Pointer variable declaration follows almost similar syntax as of normal variable.

Syntax to declare pointer variable

data-type * pointer-variable-name;

• data-type is a valid C data type.
• * symbol specifies it is a pointer variable. You must prefix * before variable name to declare it as a pointer.
• pointer-variable-name is a valid C identifier i.e. the name of pointer variable.

Example to declare pointer variable

int * ptr;

In above example I declared an integer pointer.

How to initialize pointer variable

There are two ways to initialize a pointer variable. You can use reference operator & to get memory location of a variable or you can also directly assign one pointer variable to other pointer variable.

Examples to initialize pointer variable

int num = 10; int *ptr = # // Assign address of num to ptr // You can also assign a pointer variable to another int *ptr1 = ptr; // Initialize pointer using another pointer

How pointers are stored in memory

You got a basic picture of pointer working. Let us take a closer look on how pointer variables are stored in memory. Consider the following statements

int num = 10; int *ptr = #

Below is memory representation of above two statements.

Example program to use pointers

Write a C program to demonstrate the use of pointers in C programming.

/** * C program to demonstrate use of pointers */ #include int main() < int num = 1; int *ptr = # // ptr points to num printf("Value of num = %d \n", num); printf("Address of num = %x \n\n", &num); printf("Value of ptr = %x \n", ptr); printf("Address of ptr = %x \n", &ptr); printf("Value pointed by ptr = %d \n\n", *ptr); /* Change the value of num directly */ num = 10; printf("After changing value of num directly. \n"); printf("Value of num = %d \n", num); printf("Value pointed by ptr = %d \n\n", *ptr); /* Assigns 100 at the address pointed by ptr */ *ptr = 100; printf("After changing value pointed by ptr. \n"); printf("Value of num = %d \n", num); printf("Value pointed by ptr = %d \n", *ptr); return 0; >

Output –

Value of num = 1 Address of num = 60ff0c Value of ptr = 60ff0c Address of ptr = 60ff08 Value pointed by ptr = 1 After changing value of num directly. Value of num = 10 Value pointed by ptr = 10 After changing value pointed by ptr. Value of num = 100 Value pointed by ptr = 100

Note: Output of above program may differ on your system.

Working of above program

• int *ptr = # declares an integer pointer that points at num .
• The first two printf() in line 12 and 13 are straightforward. First prints value of num and other prints memory address of num .
• printf("Value of ptr = %x \n", ptr); prints the value stored at ptr i.e. memory address of num . Hence, the statement prints memory address of num .
• printf("Address of ptr = %x \n", &ptr); prints the address of ptr . Don’t confuse with address of ptr and address pointed by ptr . First ptr is a variable so it will have a memory address which is retrieved using &ptr . And since it is a pointer variable hence it stores memory address which is retrieved using ptr .
• printf("Value pointed by ptr = %d \n\n", *ptr); , here * dereferences value pointed by ptr and prints the value at memory location pointed by ptr .
• Next, we made some changes to num i.e. num=10 . After changes printf("Value of num = %d \n", num); prints 10.
• Since we made changes to our original variable num , hence changes are reflected back to pointer that points to the num . *ptr in line 23, dereferences value pointed by ptr i.e. 10.
• *ptr = 100; says assign 100 to memory location pointed by ptr . Which means, assign 100 to num indirectly.
• Since, we again modified the value of num using *ptr = 100 . Hence, num and *ptr in line 28 and 29 will evaluate to 100.

Recommended examples to practice

• Program to demonstrate use of pointers.
• Program to add two numbers using pointers.
• Program to swap two numbers using pointers.

C Programming

• C Fundamentals
  • Introduction to C
  • Set up C lab
  • Create, compile and run
    • Using Command line
    • Using CodeBlocks
    • Data types in C
    • Variables and Expressions
    • Defining Constants
    • Typecasting
    • Basic input and output
    • Flow control statements
    • Simple if
    • If…else and if…else…if
    • Nested if…else
    • Switch case
    • If…else…if vs switch…case
    • for loop
    • while loop
    • do…while loop
    • Nested loops
    • break statement
    • continue statement
    • goto statement
    • Infinite loops
    • Functions in C
    • Function arguments
    • return statement
    • Types of functions
    • Recursion in C
    • Variable length arguments (var-args)
    • C local variables
    • C static variables
    • C global variables
    • C storage classes
    • C Arrays
    • C multi-dimensional array
    • C Arrays and functions
    • C Pointers Introduction
    • C Pointer arithmetic
    • C Pointer to Pointer
    • C Pointers and Array
    • C const pointer and pointer to const
    • C void pointer
    • C Function pointer
    • Compile time & runtime memory allocation
    • Dynamic Memory Allocation
    • C Structures
    • C Unions
    • C typedef
    • Basic and conditional preprocessor directives
    • Stringize and token pasting operator