1.4: Introduction to Memory Pointers
A pointer variable is a variable whose value is a memory address. Memory pointers can be very complex and few programmers really understand them, even though they are involved in many uses, from simple to complex. Pointers are an essential topic in C/C++, since they offer many opportunities for run-time improvement and ease of access to linked data structures. However, using pointers can also produce obscure code that is hard to understand. Misuse of pointers can also seriously corrupt memory during program execution, and these kinds of errors are very hard to track down. Even so, direct memory access is central to C/C++. As your compound data types become more multifaceted and are used within increasingly involved operations, a good understanding of pointers becomes even more important. Watch this video to get an excellent introduction to pointer variables.