Understanding and Using C Pointers

Table of Contents

1. Preface
   1. Why This Book Is Different
   2. The Approach
   3. Audience
   4. Organization
   5. Summary
   6. Conventions Used in This Book
   7. Using Code Examples
   8. Safari® Books Online
   9. How to Contact Us
2. 1. Introduction
   1. Pointers and Memory
      1. Why You Should Become Proficient with Pointers
      2. Declaring Pointers
      3. How to Read a Declaration
      4. Address of Operator
      5. Displaying Pointer Values
         1. Virtual memory and pointers
      6. Dereferencing a Pointer Using the Indirection Operator
      7. Pointers to Functions
      8. The Concept of Null
         1. To NULL or not to NULL
         2. Pointer to void
         3. Global and static pointers
   2. Pointer Size and Types
      1. Memory Models
      2. Predefined Pointer-Related Types
         1. Understanding size_t
         2. Using the sizeof operator with pointers
         3. Using intptr_t and uintptr_t
   3. Pointer Operators
      1. Pointer Arithmetic
         1. Adding an integer to a pointer
         2. Pointers to void and addition
         3. Subtracting an integer from a pointer
         4. Subtracting two pointers
      2. Comparing Pointers
   4. Common Uses of Pointers
      1. Multiple Levels of Indirection
      2. Constants and Pointers
         1. Pointers to a constant
         2. Constant pointers to nonconstants
         3. Constant pointers to constants
         4. Pointer to (constant pointer to constant)
   5. Summary
3. 2. Dynamic Memory Management in C
   1. Dynamic Memory Allocation
      1. Memory Leaks
         1. Losing the address
         2. Hidden memory leaks
   2. Dynamic Memory Allocation Functions
      1. Using the malloc Function
         1. To cast or not to cast
         2. Failing to allocate memory
         3. Not using the right size for the malloc function
         4. Determining the amount of memory allocated
         5. Using malloc with static and global pointers
      2. Using the calloc Function
      3. Using the realloc Function
      4. The alloca ...