Chapter 12:

Pointers
 Objectives
• In this chapter, you will:
– Learn about the pointer data type and pointer
variables
– Explore how to declare and manipulate pointer
variables
– Learn about the address of the operator and the
dereferencing operator
– Learn how pointers work with classes and structs
– Discover dynamic variables

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 Objectives (cont’d.)
– Explore how to use the new and delete operators to
manipulate dynamic variables
– Learn about pointer arithmetic
– Learn how to work with dynamic arrays
– Become familiar with the limitations of range-based
for loops with dynamic arrays
– Explore how pointers work with functions as
parameters and functions as return values
– Become familiar with the shallow and deep copies of
data
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 Pointer Data Type and Pointer
Variables
• Pointer variable: content is a memory address
• No name associated with the pointer data
type in C++

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 Declaring Pointer Variables
• Syntax:

• Examples:
int *p;
char *ch;
• These statements are equivalent:
int *p;
int* p;
int * p;
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 Declaring Pointer Variables (cont’d.)
• In the statement:
int* p, q;
– Only p is a pointer variable
– q is an int variable

• To avoid confusion, attach the character * to

the variable name:
int *p, q;
int *p, *q;
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 Address of Operator (&)
• Address of operator (&):
– A unary operator that returns the address of its
operand
• Example:
int x;
int *p;
p = &x;
– Assigns the address of x to p

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 Address of Operator (&)

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 Address of Operator (&)

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 Address of Operator (&)

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 Address of Operator (&)

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 Address of Operator (&)

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 Dereferencing Operator (*)
• Dereferencing operator (or indirection
operator):
– When used as a unary operator, * refers to object
to which its operand points
• Example:
cout << *p << endl;
– Prints the value stored in the memory location
pointed to by p

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 Classes, structs, and Pointer
Variables
• You can declare pointers to other data types:

– student is an object of type studentType

– studentPtr is a pointer variable of type
studentType
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 Classes, structs, and Pointer
Variables (cont’d.)
• To store address of student in
studentPtr:
studentPtr = &student;
• To store 3.9 in component gpa of student:
(*studentPtr).gpa = 3.9;
– ( ) used because dot operator has higher
precedence than dereferencing operator
– Alternative: use member access operator arrow (-
>)

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 Classes, structs, and Pointer
Variables (cont’d.)
• Syntax to access a class (struct) member
using the operator -> :

• Thus,
(*studentPtr).gpa = 3.9;
is equivalent to:
studentPtr->gpa = 3.9;

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 Initializing Pointer Variables
• C++ does not automatically initialize variables
• Pointer variables must be initialized if you do
not want them to point to anything
– Initialized using the null pointer: the value 0
– Or, use the NULL named constant
– The number 0 is the only number that can be
directly assigned to a pointer variable
• C++11 includes a nullptr

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 Dynamic Variables
• Dynamic variables: created during execution
• C++ creates dynamic variables using pointers
• new and delete operators: used to create
and destroy dynamic variables
– new and delete are reserved words in C++

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 Operator new
• new has two forms:

– intExp is any expression evaluating to a positive

integer
• new allocates memory (a variable) of the
designated type and returns a pointer to it
– The allocated memory is uninitialized

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 Operator new (cont’d.)
• Example: p = new int;
– Creates a variable during program execution
somewhere in memory
– Stores the address of the allocated memory in p
• To access allocated memory, use *p
• A dynamic variable cannot be accessed
directly
• Because it is unnamed

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 Operator delete
• Memory leak: previously allocated memory that
cannot be reallocated
– To avoid a memory leak, when a dynamic variable is no
longer needed, destroy it to deallocate its memory
• delete operator: used to destroy dynamic
variables
• Syntax:

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 Operator delete

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 Operator delete

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 Operator delete

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 Operations on Pointer Variables
• Assignment: value of one pointer variable can
be assigned to another pointer of same type
• Relational operations: two pointer variables of
same type can be compared for equality, etc.
• Some limited arithmetic operations:
– Integer values can be added and subtracted from
a pointer variable
– Value of one pointer variable can be subtracted
from another pointer variable

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 Operations on Pointer Variables
(cont’d.)
• Pointer arithmetic can be very dangerous:
– Program can accidentally access memory
locations of other variables and change their
content without warning
• Some systems might terminate the program with an
appropriate error message
• Always exercise extra care when doing pointer
arithmetic

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 Dynamic Arrays
• Dynamic array: array created during program
execution
• Example:
int *p;
p = new int[10];

*p = 25; stores 25 into the first memory location

p++; //to point to next array component
*p = 35; stores 35 into the second memory location

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 Dynamic Arrays (cont’d.)
• Can use array notation to access these
memory locations
• Example:
p[0] = 25;
p[1] = 35;
– Stores 25 and 35 into the first and second array
components, respectively

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 Functions and Pointers
• Pointer variable can be passed as a parameter
either by value or by reference
• As a reference parameter in a function
heading, use &:
void pointerParameters(int &p, double *q)
{
. . .
}

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 Pointers and Function Return Values
• A function can return a value of type pointer:

int* testExp(...)
{
. . .
}

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 Dynamic Two-Dimensional Arrays
• You can create dynamic multidimensional
arrays
• Examples:
declares board to be an array of four
pointers wherein each pointer is of type int

creates the rows of board

declares board to be a pointer to a pointer

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 Dynamic Two-Dimensional Arrays

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 Shallow Versus Deep Copy and
Pointers
• Shallow copy: when two or more pointers of
the same types point to the same memory
– They point to the same data
– Danger: deleting one deletes the data pointed to
by all of them

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 Shallow Versus Deep Copy and
Pointers

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 Shallow Versus Deep Copy and
Pointers

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 Shallow Versus Deep Copy and
Pointers
• Deep copy: when the contents of the memory
pointed to by a pointer are copied to the
memory location of another pointer
– Two copies of the data

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 Shallow Versus Deep Copy and
Pointers

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 Shallow Versus Deep Copy and
Pointers

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 Summary
• Pointer variables contain the addresses of
other variables as their values
• Declare a pointer variable with an asterisk, *,
between the data type and the variable
• Address of operator (&)returns the address of its
operand
• Unary operator * is the dereferencing operator
• Member access operator (->) accesses the object
component pointed to by a pointer

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 Summary (cont’d.)
• Dynamic variable: created during execution
– Created using new, deallocated using delete.
• Shallow copy: two or more pointers of the
same type point to the same memory.
• Deep copy: two or more pointers of the same
type have their own copies of the data.

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