newbie question pointers

[starternewb]

Im very new, what does this mean when a * is in this location

char* val;

I noticed its used here Cprogramming.com Tutorial: Pointers however it is applied to the val and not char

char *val;

[quzah]

It is attached to the variable.

char *ptr, notaptr;

If it attached to 'char', then both 'ptr' and 'notaptr' would be pointers, but it attaches to 'ptr'. The result is that 'notaptr' is just a char. To make them both pointers, you would need:

char *ptr, *aptr;

The easy thing to do is to read from right to left:

char *ptr;

ptr is a...
* pointer to a...
char


Quzah.

[drshmoo]

char* val
char *val

are both char pointers, i.e., they point to some char in the heap. The beginning char of a string for instance.

[quzah]

Ah, I misunderstood the question. The whitespace is irrelevant. These are all the same:

char* p;
char *p;
char * p;
char*p;

Good catch.


Quzah.

[starternewb]

so

char* bla1, bla2, bla3;

means all the bla1..2..3 are all now pointers?

or it means just bla1 would be a pointer and bla2..3 are chars?

---

and

struct val1 * val2;

means just val2 is a pointer?

[quzah]

Read my first reply. Only bla1 is a pointer, the other two are not.


Quzah.

[CommonTater]

so

char* bla1, bla2, bla3;

means all the bla1..2..3 are all now pointers?

No... only the one with the star.

It is true that whitespace doesn't matter however I find the line you have to be visually deceiving since, gramatically, it seems to say 3 pointers. Which is why I put the * with the variable... for me, it's clearer.

To make all three ponters you need...

char *bla1, *bla2, *bla3;

struct val1 * val2;

means just val2 is a pointer?

Yes, val2 is a pointer to a struct of type val1.

[starternewb]

wahoo, thanks everyone for the help much appreciated!