Dereferencing
This article is quite advanced and assumes you have an understanding of C++. If not, please refer to the C++ section of this book!
The dereference operator (*) is used to access the value at the memory address stored in a pointer.
int someValue = *somePtr; // Retrieves the value stored at the memory address
Dereferencing also allows you to modify the value stored at the memory address.
int someVar = 420;
int* somePtr = &someVar;
*somePtr = 69; // Modifies the value stored at the memory address
When working with pointers to class members, the -> operator is often used for dereferencing.
class SomeClass
{
public:
int someData;
};
SomeClass someObj;
SomeClass* ptr = &someObj;
ptr->someData = 69; // Dereferencing using the -> operator to access class member
Dereferencing is often combined with pointer arithmetic to manipulate arrays, flags, or other blocks of data.
int main()
{
int numbers[] = {6, 9, 4, 2, 0 };
int* ptr = numbers;
// Print the third element in the array via pointer math
std::cout << "Value: " << *(ptr + 2); << std::endl;
return someValue;
}
// Console Output:
// Value: 4