Thread: simple program can't run

You're trying to set the value at whatever storage location pointer *p points at to the storage location (address) of integer a. Because pointer *p has not been initialized it could contain a garbage value (which represents a storage location) and point to somewhere random in memory. Overwriting this value (the value at a random address in memory) will result in undefined behaviour causing your program to crash.

You need to set the value of pointer p to the address of integer a.

Originally Posted by endrick

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
    int *p,a=2;
    *p=&a;
    printf("%d",*p);


    return 0;
}

The asterisk in line 6 and 7 have differend meanings.

Code:

    int *p,a=2;

This line declare p as a pointer to int.
The asterisk mean, that p is an pointer.

Code:

    *p = &a;

In this line the asterisk mean, that p should be dereferenced.
But this lead to an segmentation fault, because p is declared but not defined.
The value of p is actual garbage.

The line from Satya (post #3) is correct.
It define the value of p to the address of a.