Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In C++ pointers to non-static members of a class can be defined. If a class C has a member T a then &C::a is a pointer to the member a of type T C::*. This member can be an object or a function. [16] They can be used on the right-hand side of operators .* and ->* to access the corresponding member.
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]
A function pointer, also called a subroutine pointer or procedure pointer, is a pointer referencing executable code, rather than data. Dereferencing the function pointer yields the referenced function , which can be invoked and passed arguments just as in a normal function call.
To expose dangling pointer errors, one common programming technique is to set pointers to the null pointer or to an invalid address once the storage they point to has been released. When the null pointer is dereferenced (in most languages) the program will immediately terminate—there is no potential for data corruption or unpredictable behavior.
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.
In the C programming language, struct is the keyword used to define a composite, a.k.a. record, data type – a named set of values that occupy a block of memory. It allows for the different values to be accessed via a single identifier, often a pointer. A struct can contain other data types so is used for mixed-data-type records.
The element pc requires ten blocks of memory of the size of pointer to char (usually 40 or 80 bytes on common platforms), but element pa is only one pointer (size 4 or 8 bytes), and the data it refers to is an array of ten bytes (sizeof * pa == 10).
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 6 January 2025. General-purpose programming language "C programming language" redirects here. For the book, see The C Programming Language. Not to be confused with C++ or C#. C Logotype used on the cover of the first edition of The C Programming Language Paradigm Multi-paradigm: imperative (procedural ...