The C++ Workshop

5. Pointers and References

Overview

This chapter presents C++ built-in pointer types and reference types in enough detail for you to use them effectively. Pointer and reference types are important raw materials out of which data structures are built, so understanding these simple, primitive types is crucial to your success as a C++ developer.

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to describe the memory address model used by C++; explain how pointers and references refer to other variables; declare, initialize, and use pointers and references; explain how pointers and arrays are similar; describe how a pointer can be stepped through the elements of an array; perform pointer arithmetic and use pointers and references as function arguments. ...