Exploring C++20: The Programmer's Introduction to C++

© Ray Lischner 2020

R. LischnerExploring C++20https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5961-0_62

62. Pointers

Ray Lischner¹ 

(1)

Ellicott City, MD, USA

 

Few topics cause more confusion, especially for programmers new to C++, than pointers. Necessary, powerful, and versatile, pointers can also be dangerous and the underlying cause of so many bugs that they are both bane and blessing. Pointers are hard at work behind many of the standard library’s features, and any serious application or library inevitably uses pointers in some fashion. Most application programmers do not work with pointers directly, but they affect the entire C++ standard in ways that you cannot ignore.

A Programming Problem

Before diving into syntax and semantics, consider the following problem. ...