SEQUENTIAL AND OBJECT
ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
Content
2
Pointer declaration
Pointer initialization
Pointer operators (assignment, arithmetic, equality and relational)
Arrays and pointers
Accessing elements in pointer to array
Objectives
3
By the end you should recognize:
What pointers are, how they are used and why they are needed
Declaration and initialization of pointers
Usage of address-of (&) and dereferencing (*) operators
Common operators that can be used with pointers
Differences between pointers and references
How to use pointers to pass arguments to the function by reference
Declaring and using pointer to string or array of characters
Pointer
A variable or constant that holds a memory address
You can think of pointer as a variable or constant that points to another
variable or data structure
Special variables that contain memory addresses as values
It contains the address of the memory location where the data is
Pointer Declaration
Syntax
Examples
int
*myPtr;
int
*myPtr1, *myPtr2;
int
*myPtr, var ;
int
* Ptr1, Ptr2;
5
Pointer Initialization
Can be initialized to
0
NULL [ points to nothing (null pointer) ]
an address
Examples
int
*Ptr1=0, *Ptr2=NULL ;
How can be initializes pointer to an address of another variable?
Pointer Operators
7
Address-of Operator (
&
)
Assign address of variable to a pointer
int
p =1, *ptr =
&
p;
ptr
indirectly references variable
p
’s value
Dereferencing Operator (
*
)
Returns the value of the variable a pointer points to
int
p =1, *ptr =
&
p;
cout <<
*
ptr ;
//*ptr is a synonym of p
*
ptr = 5 ;
// it is as if you wrote p=5;
1
p
8
1 // Fig. 8.4: fig08_04.cpp
2 // Using the & and * operators.
3 #include <iostream> 4 using std::cout; 5 using std::endl; 6
7 int main() 8 {
9 int a; // a is an integer
10 int *aPtr; // aPtr is an int * -- pointer to an integer
11
12 a = 7; // assigned 7 to a
13 aPtr = &a; // assign the address of a to aPtr
14
15 cout << "The address of a is " << &a
16 << "\nThe value of aPtr is " << aPtr;
17 cout << "\n\nThe value of a is " << a
18 << "\nThe value of *aPtr is " << *aPtr;
19 cout << "\n\nShowing that * and & are inverses of "
20 << "each other.\n&*aPtr = " << &*aPtr
21 << "\n*&aPtr = " << *&aPtr << endl;
22 return 0; // indicates successful termination
23 } // end main
The address of a is 0012F580 The value of aPtr is 0012F580
The value of a is 7 The value of *aPtr is 7
Showing that * and & are inverses of each other. &*aPtr = 0012F580
Precedence & Associativity of Operators
9
Operators
Associativity
Type
() []
left to right
highest
++ --
static_cast
<
type
>(
operand
)
left to right
unary (postfix)
++ -- + - ! & *
right to left
unary (prefix)
* / %
left to right
multiplicative
+ -
left to right
additive
<< >>
left to right
insertion/extraction
< <= > >=
left to right
relational
== !=
left to right
equality
&&
left to right
logical AND
||
left to right
logical OR
?:
right to left
conditional
= += -= *= /= %=
right to left
assignment
Pointer Arithmetic Operators
Increment/decrement pointer (++ or --)
Add/subtract an integer to/from a pointer (+ or +=, - or -=)
Pointers may be subtracted from each other
Pointer arithmetic is meaningless unless performed on a pointer to
an array
Pointer Arithmetic Operators (cont.)
5 element
int
array on a machine using 4 byte
int
s
vPtr
points to first element
v[ 0 ]
, at location 3000
vPtr = &v[ 0 ];
vPtr += 2;
sets
vPtr
to 3008 (3000 + 2 * 4)
vPtr
points to
v[ 2 ]
Pointer Arithmetic Operators (cont.)
Subtracting pointers
Returns number of elements between two addresses
vPtr2 = &v[ 2 ];
vPtr = &v[ 0 ];
vPtr2 - vPtr
is 2
Pointer assignment
Pointer can be assigned to another pointer if both are of same type
If not same type, cast operator must be used
int
x, *xptr = &x;
double
y,*yptr=&y;
Pointer to void
Generic pointer, represents any type
No casting needed to convert pointer to void *
Casting is needed to convert void * to any other type
void pointers
cannot
be dereferenced
void
*wptr;
int
x=3, *xptr = &x;
Double
y=4.5, *yptr=&y;
xptr = (
int
*) yptr;
wptr = xptr;
wptr = yptr;
xptr = wptr ;
// Error
xptr = (
int
*) wptr;
cout << *xptr << *yptr ;
cout << *wptr ;
// Error
Pointer Comparison
Done by using equality and relational operators
Compare addresses stored in pointers
Comparisons are meaningless unless pointers point to members of
the same array
Could show that one pointer points to higher-index element of array than
another pointer
vPtr2 = &v[ 2 ];
vPtr = &v[ 0 ];
if
( vPtr2 > vPtr )
cout << “vptr points to an element at a higher index”;
Commonly used to determine whether pointer is 0 (null pointer)
if
( ptr == NUL ) …
Arrays and Pointers
Assume declarations
int
b[5];
int
*bPtr;
Array name
b
is a
Constant pointer
that points to the first element of the array
bPtr = b;
// will make bptr point to the 1st array element
Accessing Elements
bPtr = b;
Addresses
&
b
[
3
]
is same as
bPtr
+
3
To access the element at array index 3
b
[
3
]
[ array/
subscript
notation ]
bPtr
[
3
]
[ pointer/
subscript
notation ]
*
( bPtr + 3 ) [ pointer/
offset
notation ]
*
( b + 3 ) [ array/
offset
notation ]
16
b
bPtr
17
Outline
1 // Fig. 8.20: fig08_20.cpp
2 // Using subscripting and pointer notations with arrays.
3 #include <iostream> 4 using std::cout; 5 using std::endl; 6
7 int main() 8 {
9 int b[] = { 10, 20, 30, 40 }; // create 4-element array b
10 int *bPtr = b; // set bPtr to point to array b
11
12 // output array b using array subscript notation
13 cout << "Array b printed with:\n\nArray subscript notation\n"; 14
15 for ( int i = 0; i < 4; i++ )
16 cout << "b[" << i << "] = " << b[ i ] << '\n'; 17
18 // output array b using the array name and pointer/offset notation
19 cout << "\nPointer/offset notation where " 20 << "the pointer is the array name\n";
21
22 for ( int offset1 = 0; offset1 < 4; offset1++ )
23 cout << "*(b + " << offset1 << ") = " << *( b + offset1 ) << '\n';
Using array subscript notation
18
Outline
24
25 // output array b using bPtr and array subscript notation
26 cout << "\nPointer subscript notation\n";
27
28 for ( int j = 0; j < 4; j++ )
29 cout << "bPtr[" << j << "] = " << bPtr[ j ] << '\n'; 30
31 cout << "\nPointer/offset notation\n";
32
33 // output array b using bPtr and pointer/offset notation
34 for ( int offset2 = 0; offset2 < 4; offset2++ ) 35 cout << "*(bPtr + " << offset2 << ") = "
36 << *( bPtr + offset2 ) << '\n';
37
38 return 0; // indicates successful termination
39 } // end main
Using pointer subscript notation
Pointer-based Strings
String as arrays of Characters
char
color[] = "blue";
char
color[] = { 'b', 'l', 'u', 'e', '\0' };
String as pointer to character
char
*colorPtr = "blue";
19
‘l’
‘b’
‘u’ ‘e’ ‘\0’
colorPtr
20
1 // Fig. 8.21: fig08_21.cpp
2 // Copying a string using array notation and pointer notation.
3 #include <iostream> 4 using std::cout; 5 using std::endl; 6
7 void copy1( char *, const char * ); // prototype
8 void copy2( char *, const char * ); // prototype
9
10 int main() 11 {
12 char string1[ 10 ]; 13 char *string2 = "Hello"; 14 char string3[ 10 ];
15 char string4[] = "Good Bye"; 16
17 copy1( string1, string2 ); // copy string2 into string1
18 cout << "string1 = " << string1 << endl;
19
20 copy2( string3, string4 ); // copy string4 into string3
21 cout << "string3 = " << string3 << endl;
22 return 0; // indicates successful termination
21
Outline
24
25 // copy s2 to s1 using array notation
26 void copy1( char * s1, const char * s2 ) 27 {
28 // copying occurs in the for header
29 for ( int i = 0; ( s1[ i ] = s2[ i ] ) != '\0'; i++ ) 30 ; // do nothing in body
31 } // end function copy1
32
33 // copy s2 to s1 using pointer notation
34 void copy2( char *s1, const char *s2 ) 35 {
36 // copying occurs in the for header
37 for ( ; ( *s1 = *s2 ) != '\0'; s1++, s2++ ) 38 ; // do nothing in body
39 } // end function copy2
string1 = Hello string3 = Good Bye
Use array subscript notation to copy
string in
s2
to character array
s1
Use pointer notation to copy string
in
s2
to character array in
s1
Included Sections
22
