Pointers, useful? Please explain!

Hello, I have been reading trough the first C++ tutorials, tried to program and learn how it is, and so far so good, but what I can't understand, is the USE of pointers, I understand how to set a pointer, read it and pass it on etc. but what is the use? I need some real life examples. How would they be usefull in game programming for example?
I have programmed in PHP and GML(GameMaker Language) and I have never had anny use for pointers. Now, I don't say they are not usefull, I just want to know what they are usefull for ^^

Thanks in advance! ^_^

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I understand how to set a pointer, read it and pass it on etc. but what is the use?

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At this point in your learning, you only need to know the mechanics of how to use pointers--not why they are useful. It will all be revealed to you in time.

Hmmm... I like to know WHY I need to learn it before i learn it :P learn it learn it it learn :P etc.

Did your parents tell you why you shouldn't eat yellow snow when you were a kid? :)

once you get into dynamic memory allocation, and the data structure concepts, it should make sense.

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Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Did your parents tell you why you shouldn't eat yellow snow when you were a kid? :)

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Damn, you got me there :P

Well, as you say, I will probaly find out of it on the way ^_^
But It's just that everyone say that it's so important and make everything so easier :S

So does driving, but you don't do that until you're 16. Yes, pointers are VERY useful and when you're ready to use them, you'll find yourself using them alot. Make sure you understand procedural programming completely, then you can pick up a programming book at your library and start learning about pointers and OOP.

Pointers will be much more useful when, as Xipher said, you are using dynamic memory and data structures. When you get to that point, you will find you can make better use of certain templating features and other such handy features and deal with data in a much more abstract and beneficial way.

A common question...

Assuming you're working through the tutorial in order, and you already know a little about functions...

A function can only return one variable. And, when you pass a variable into a function, you are passing-in it's value... not the actual variable.

If you want a function to affect more than one variable, you need to use pointers,* so that you can "get to" the actual variable.

Most programming books introduce pointers with a swap() function. The function swaps the values of two variables... Say X=2 and Y=4. You pass X and Y into a function that makes X=4 and Y=2. You can't do that with "regular" variables!

Pointers are also useful when working with arrays (lesson 8). Again, you can't return a whole array from a function, but you can get-around this limitation by returning a pointer to the start of the array.




* Actually uou could use references which are preferred 90% of the time in this situation.

Thanks, I'll try to read up more on functions, structures and dynamic memory before thinking too much about pointer ^^
I'll just go back to my primitive Tic Tac Toe game :P

There is no point in reading up on Dynamic Memory Allocation without learning about pointers because the first thing you're going to read on it is going to use pointers.

I can't wait till I get to that point as well. As of now I can only see 2 reasons to use pointers. 1 being able to use then and modify a value from main() from a function (ie pass by reference). 2, if there is simply to much data you need to pass it is a lot more efficient to pass by a pointer rather then the value. Other then that though I am still trying to figure out the point of binary trees and more advanced data structures.

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Other then that

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As far as pointers are concerned, there is no other than that(..errr except being able to do "polymorphism") :)

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I am still trying to figure out the point of binary trees and more advanced data structures.

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Efficiency and ease of use. For instance, a binary tree can be searched quicker than, say, an ordinary array--where you have to go through every element in the array before you can say that something isn't in the array.

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Originally Posted by RealityFusion

Other then that though I am still trying to figure out the point of binary trees and more advanced data structures.

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Efficiency. Consider the following two structures

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[1][8][4][7][6][2][9][3][5][0]

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          [5]
        /    \
      [2]      [8]
      / \      / \
  [1]  [3] [7]  [9]
  /        /
[0]      [6]

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In the first structure, the furthest data is 10 iterations away. In the second structure, it's only 4.

Pointers are very useful for dynamic memory allocation. I know, I know, I'm only the millionth person to say this on this thread.

But here's in example: You're getting customer data, but you don't know how many customers the user is going to input. This presents a serious problem if there weren't pointers. You could, say, just go "Customer array[1000];" but let's say the user only enters 10 records. You end up with a lot of empty memory that none of the other programs can use. Pointers solve all these problems with dynamic memory allocation and linked lists.

Hope I make sense ;)

wow.... you ppl just solved one of my problems, without even nowing it exists.... now the program i been workin on will be so much simpler

In C++, plain pointers are not used as commonly as they are in C. There are often more appropriate alternatives, like references, container classes or smart pointer classes.