Sruthi M, ECE

Online Lecture 2- EC312 OOP

C++ Pointers

Ref: Object Oriented Programming using C++ and JAVA, E. Balaguruswamy, Mc Graw Hill
Education
 Pointers
• It is a derived data type that refers to another
data variable by storing variable’s memory
address rather than data

• A pointer variable defines where to get the

value of a specific data variable instead of
defining actual data
 Declaration Format
• data_type *pointer_variable;

• data_type -> int,float,char..etc.

• pointer_variable -> Name of pointer
• * - Asterisk symbol which distinguishes a
pointer variable from other variables
 Declaration Example

• int *ptr, a; // Declaration

• ptr = &a; // Initialization

• ‘&’ to retrieve address of a variable

 Sample Program 1
• #include <iostream>
• using namespace std;
• int main ()
• {
• int var = 20; // actual
variable declaration.
• int *ip; // pointer variable
• ip = &var; // store address
of var in pointer variable
• cout << "Value of var
variable: ";
• cout << var << endl;
• // print the address stored
in ip pointer variable
• cout << "Address stored in
ip variable: ";
• cout << ip << endl;
• //Access the value at the
address available in pointer
• cout << "Value of *ip
variable: ";
• cout << *ip << endl;
• return 0;
• }
 Sample Program 1 - Output
• When the above code is compiled and
executed, it produces result as follows −
– Value of var variable: 20
– Address stored in ip variable: 0xbfc601ac (some
hex value)
– Value of *ip variable: 20
 Pointer Concepts
1. Null pointer
2. Pointer Arithmetic
3. Using Pointers with arrays and Strings
4. Array of Pointers
5. Pointer to pointer
6. Pointer to function
7. Pointer to Objects
8. This Pointer
9. Pointers to derived class
 Null Pointer
• The pointers which are not initialized in a
program or do not have exact address to be
assigned, are called Null pointers.
• The NULL pointer is a constant with a value of
zero defined in several standard libraries,
including iostream
 Sample program – Null pointer
• #include <iostream>
• using namespace std;
• int main ()
• {
• int *ptr = NULL;
• cout << "The value of ptr is " << ptr ;
• return 0;
• }

• Output of the above code - The value of ptr is 0