Addresses and Pointers
When pvar is a pointer variable carrying an address, the dereferencing (or indirection) operator * is used to extract the value stored in that address (via the expression *pvar)
The dereferencing operator * is also used for the declaration of pointer type variables.
Example: int i, *pi; /* pi - a pointer to integer */ /* in other words, *pi is int */ i = 3; pi = &i; /* now (*pi == 3) */ *pi = 2; /* now (i == 2) */ Memory Image:
After line 2, above: Address 0x6414 Address 0x6480 i pi
After line 3, above: Address 0x6414 Address 0x6480 i pi