Thread: Some questions about pointers

here is my basic Idea of pointers from what I learned so far. Plz tell me if I am correct and the second part with the pCat is a little confusing.

Code:

int * pPoint = 5;    // this deferences a pointer, assigning it 5.
cout << &pPoint;  // shows the address of the pointer

//some other q's
int cat=5;
*pCat = &myAge;
cout << *pCat;  //now does this return the address of the cat,
                          //or the value 5 which is stored in the address?

//also
cout << pCat;  // what would that output?

Toss it in a complier and find out. Not trying to be rude, but you will find out that when beginning C++ you will do this often. I use VC++ and used to open 2 versions of the program, 1 for the project I was working on, and 1 to test stuff out. I also put cout statments all over the place so I can check values as they run through the program. This is just one way to look for bugs. Good Luck!

None of it should work, you can't assign a constant value to a pointer, so

int * pPoint = 5;

is wrong. You need to make another variable to hold the 5 and then have the pointer point to the address of that variable.

int p = 5;
int * pPoint = &p;

You need to declare variables before using them, so

*pCat = &myAge;

is also wrong. Both pCat and myAge don't exist in the code you posted. Assuming that they both did exist,

cout << *pCat;

would print whatever value is in myAge because that is where pCat points to. You dereference the pointer which means "go to the address pointed to and return the contents of it". And

cout << pCat;

would print whatever address myAge is located at because cout prints the contents of the variable you pass it, a pointer is a variable that holds an address, so the output would be an address.

Bebop

Sorry, I didn't fully understand what you were asking.