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Pointer Insomnia

blanky · 2006-04-23T22:06:44

Okay guys, I'm a C/C++ 'programmer', the quotes because I'm great at everything but pointers, even though I can do, still kinda confuse me, and since pointers are practically what those languages are all about, I can't really call myself a programmer :(. I've read tutorials/articles, read books, googled my head off, and all I find is the occasional int myint = 9; int *pmyint = &myint; *pmyint = 4; // now myint is equal to 4 Okay, I understand that, absolutely, I understand pointer arithmetic as well (Iterating and the like), however, I get confused when someone does (I'm making this up, not that it actually works, but you'll get the idea) something like (*(char)&something), so they use them all weird, &(*thing(&something)), remember, I made that up, but that's what it looks like to me, I think it has something to do with casting, I might be able to understand that. However, where the big confusion for me comes in, is when people create, say, functions that take in either pointers or references, which ones and why? Like, someone takes in an int *thing, but inside the function, treats it as &thing, or the other way around, I think that means that now the function can have direct control over the variable which thing points to, but, man it's hard to explain. Like, basically, they pass one thing (say, a pointer), and but treat it another way, how do you know why to treat it that way? Er, nevermind, in the process of typing this up I think I get it, but if you guys can help out I'd really appreciate it, this thing's driving me crazy. I know that: int *thing *thing = the actual thing it points to thing = the address? So if: int mynum = 9; int *thing = &mynum; *thing = 9 thing = address of mynum ? And basically you pass references or variables to not duplicate variables and therefore speed things up? But why pass references/pointers, which one? And when? function(int *thing) or function(int &thing)? Thanks, I hope I didn't confuse anybody, I'm so confused myself, really would appreciate any help :'( EDIT: For example, what's that all about, when you do something like (*WORD)&something, or something like that, which supposedly makes the first WORD sized part of variable something equal to whatever, or something like that? [Edited by - blankdev on April 16, 2006 3:37:21 PM]

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by blanky April 16, 2006 02:25 PM

19 comments, last by blanky 18 years ago

blanky

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April 23, 2006 10:06 PM

Thanks guys! I'm sorry I just realized that you guys replied to this lol, thanks thanks thanks.

EDIT: I really appreciate it. See, my problem's not with the, er, 'actual' pointers themselves, I mean, of course it is but, not completely. I know what they are, etc. It's just that I get confused with things such as, say, the complicated pointer casts and what to pass when.

So when it accepts a reference, you pass a normal variable type, not a pointer to a variable. When it accepts a pointer, you pass a reference to a variable right? Is there more to this? Thanks.

Pointer Insomnia

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Pointer Insomnia

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