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It is also said that a pointer points to a datum [in memory] when the pointer's value is the datum's memory address. More generally, a pointer is a kind of reference, and it is said that a pointer references a datum stored somewhere in memory; to obtain that datum is to dereference the pointer. The feature that separates pointers from other ...
Although function pointers in C and C++ can be implemented as simple addresses, so that typically sizeof(Fx)==sizeof(void *), member pointers in C++ are sometimes implemented as "fat pointers", typically two or three times the size of a simple function pointer, in order to deal with virtual methods and virtual inheritance [citation needed].
Smart pointers typically keep track of the memory they point to, and may also be used to manage other resources, such as network connections and file handles. Smart pointers were first popularized in the programming language C++ during the first half of the 1990s as rebuttal to criticisms of C++'s lack of automatic garbage collection. [1] [2]
Among more structured solutions, a popular technique to avoid dangling pointers in C++ is to use smart pointers. A smart pointer typically uses reference counting to reclaim objects. Some other techniques include the tombstones method and the locks-and-keys method. [3]
The d-pointer pattern is one of the implementations of the opaque pointer. It is commonly used in C++ classes due to its advantages (noted below). A d-pointer is a private data member of the class that points to an instance of a structure. This method allows class declarations to omit private data members, except for the d-pointer itself. [6]
On many common platforms, this use of pointer punning can create problems if different pointers are aligned in machine-specific ways. Furthermore, pointers of different sizes can alias accesses to the same memory, causing problems that are unchecked by the compiler. Even when data size and pointer representation match, however, compilers can ...
In C, two null pointers of any type are guaranteed to compare equal. [3] Prior to C23, the preprocessor macro NULL was provided, defined as an implementation-defined null pointer constant in <stdlib.h>, [4] which in C99 can be portably expressed as ((void *)0), the integer value 0 converted to the type void* (see pointer to void type). [5]
In computer science, pointer analysis, or points-to analysis, is a static code analysis technique that establishes which pointers, or heap references, can point to which variables, or storage locations. It is often a component of more complex analyses such as escape analysis. A closely related technique is shape analysis.