Book Image

Learn C Programming - Second Edition

By : Jeff Szuhay
Book Image

Learn C Programming - Second Edition

By: Jeff Szuhay

Overview of this book

The foundation for many modern programming languages such as C++, C#, JavaScript, and Go, C is widely used as a system programming language as well as for embedded systems and high-performance computing. With this book, you'll be able to get up to speed with C in no time. The book takes you through basic programming concepts and shows you how to implement them in the C programming language. Throughout the book, you’ll create and run programs that demonstrate essential C concepts, such as program structure with functions, control structures such as loops and conditional statements, and complex data structures. As you make progress, you’ll get to grips with in-code documentation, testing, and validation methods. This new edition expands upon the use of enumerations, arrays, and additional C features, and provides two working programs based on the code used in the book. What's more, this book uses the method of intentional failure, where you'll develop a working program and then purposely break it to see what happens, thereby learning how to recognize possible mistakes when they happen. By the end of this C programming book, you’ll have developed basic programming skills in C that can be easily applied to other programming languages and have gained a solid foundation for you to build on as a programmer.
Table of Contents (38 chapters)
1
Part 1: C Fundamentals
10
Part 2: Complex Data Types
19
Part 3: Memory Manipulation
22
Part 4: Input and Output
28
Part 5: Building Blocks for Larger Programs

Chapter 13: Using Pointers

A pointer is a variable that holds a value; that value is the location (or memory address) of another value. The pointer data type has two important roles. First, it identifies the variable identifier as a pointer. Second, it specifies the kind of value that will be accessed at the location held by the pointer.

It is essential to learn how to verbally differentiate the address of notation (a pointer value) and the target of notation (the value found at the address that the pointer points to). In this chapter, we will strive to demystify C pointers.

Learning how to properly use pointers expands both the expressiveness of C programs, as well as the range of problems that can be solved.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

  • Dispelling some myths and addressing some truths about C pointers
  • Understanding where values are stored and how they are accessed
  • Declaring pointers and naming them appropriately
  • ...