C에서 * 의 이중 역할

EffessDev

Posted on Jul 15 • Edited on Jul 16

Prerequisites

Let’s create a variable.

int myNum = 5;

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Now, myNum refers to the value 5. However, we can get its memory address using the & operator like this: &myNum.

Role 1: Creating pointers

A pointer holds a memory address.

int *pointerToMyNum = &myNum;

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Role 2: Modifying values using a pointer

In this case, * works as the dereference operator.

*pointerToMyNum = 10;

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Now, if we print myNum, the output will be 10.

Understanding that they are different in each context makes things much easier ✨

Note

Both int *ptr and int* ptr are functionally identical in C.