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CSCE 1001 Chapter 9

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11 views15 pages

CSCE 1001 Chapter 9

cs

Uploaded by

abdelrahmansendo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 9

Pointers and Dynamic Arrays

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved.


9.1
Pointers

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved.


Pointers

 A pointer is the memory address of a variable


 Memory addresses can be used as names for
variables
 If a variable is stored in three memory

locations, the address of the first can be used


as a name for the variable.
 When a variable is used as a call-by-reference

argument, its address is passed

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 3


Pointers Tell
Where To Find A Variable

 An address used to tell where a variable is stored


in memory is a pointer

 Pointers "point" to a variable by telling where


the variable is located

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 4


Declaring Pointers

 Pointer variables must be declared to have a


pointer type
 Example: To declare a pointer variable p that

can "point" to a variable of type double:

double *p;
 The asterisk identifies p as a pointer variable

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 5


Multiple Pointer Declarations

 To declare multiple pointers in a statement, use


the asterisk before each pointer variable
 Example:

int *p1, *p2, v1, v2;

p1 and p2 point to variables of type int


v1 and v2 are variables of type int

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 6


The address of Operator

 The & operator can be used to determine the


address of a variable which can be assigned to a
pointer variable
 Example: p1 = &v1;

p1 is now a pointer to v1 (an alias)


v1 can be called v1 or "the variable pointed to
by p1"

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 7


The Dereferencing Operator

 C++ uses the * operator in yet another way with


pointers
 The phrase "The variable pointed to by p" is

translated into C++ as *p


 Here the * is the dereferencing operator

 p is said to be dereferenced

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 8


A Pointer Example

 v1 = 0; v1 and *p1 now refer to


p1 = &v1; the same variable
*p1 = 42;
cout << v1 << endl;
cout << *p1 << endl;

output:
42
42

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 9


Pointer Assignment
 The assignment operator = is used to assign
the value of one pointer to another
 Example: If p1 still points to v1 (previous slide)
then
p2 = p1;

causes *p2, *p1, and v1 all to name


the same variable

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 10


Caution! Pointer Assignments
 Some care is required making assignments to
pointer variables
 p1= p3; // changes the location that p1 "points" to

 *p1 = *p3; // changes the value at the location that


// p1 "points" to

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 11


Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 1- 12
The new Operator

 Using pointers, variables can be manipulated


even if there is no identifier for them
 To create a pointer to a new "nameless"

variable of type int:


p1 = new int;
 The new variable is referred to as *p1

 *p1 can be used anyplace an integer variable

can
cin >> *p1;
*p1 = *p1 + 7;
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 13
Basic Memory Management

 An area of memory called the freestore or the


heap is reserved for dynamic variables
 New dynamic variables use memory in the

freestore
 If all of the freestore is used, calls to new will

fail
 Unneeded memory can be recycled
 When variables are no longer needed, they

can be deleted and the memory they used is


returned to the freestore
Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 14
The delete Operator

 When dynamic variables are no longer needed,


delete them to return memory to the freestore
 Example:

delete p;

The value of p is now undefined and the


memory used by the variable that p pointed to
is back in the freestore

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved. Slide 9- 15

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