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Pointer Definition
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Definitions vs Declarations, Definitions and Declarations (computer programming): Type definition - User-defined type definition, Variable definition - Constant definition, Class definition - Object definition, Constructor definition - Destructor definition, Struct definition - Record definition, Function definition - Method definition, Lambda definition - Anonymous function definition, Enumerator definition, Pointer definition, Generic definition - Template definition, Interface definition - Protocol definition - Trait definition, Namespace definition - Package definition - Module definition - Alias definition - Import definition - Export definition, Macro definition. Programming terms. (navbar_definition)
- Snippet from Wikipedia: Pointer (computer programming)
In computer science, a pointer is an object in many programming languages that stores a memory address. This can be that of another value located in computer memory, or in some cases, that of memory-mapped computer hardware. A pointer references a location in memory, and obtaining the value stored at that location is known as dereferencing the pointer. As an analogy, a page number in a book's index could be considered a pointer to the corresponding page; dereferencing such a pointer would be done by flipping to the page with the given page number and reading the text found on that page. The actual format and content of a pointer variable is dependent on the underlying computer architecture.
Using pointers significantly improves performance for repetitive operations, like traversing iterable data structures (e.g. strings, lookup tables, control tables and tree structures). In particular, it is often much cheaper in time and space to copy and dereference pointers than it is to copy and access the data to which the pointers point.
Pointers are also used to hold the addresses of entry points for called subroutines in procedural programming and for run-time linking to dynamic link libraries (DLLs). In object-oriented programming, pointers to functions are used for binding methods, often using virtual method tables.
A pointer is a simple, more concrete implementation of the more abstract reference data type. Several languages, especially low-level languages, support some type of pointer, although some have more restrictions on their use than others. While "pointer" has been used to refer to references in general, it more properly applies to data structures whose interface explicitly allows the pointer to be manipulated (arithmetically via pointer arithmetic) as a memory address, as opposed to a magic cookie or capability which does not allow such. Because pointers allow both protected and unprotected access to memory addresses, there are risks associated with using them, particularly in the latter case. Primitive pointers are often stored in a format similar to an integer; however, attempting to dereference or "look up" such a pointer whose value is not a valid memory address could cause a program to crash (or contain invalid data). To alleviate this potential problem, as a matter of type safety, pointers are considered a separate type parameterized by the type of data they point to, even if the underlying representation is an integer. Other measures may also be taken (such as validation and bounds checking), to verify that the pointer variable contains a value that is both a valid memory address and within the numerical range that the processor is capable of addressing.
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- COBOL pointer definition on IBM.com/docs
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- REXX pointer definition on IBM.com/docs
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- Snippet from Wikipedia: Declaration (computer programming)
In computer programming, a declaration is a language construct specifying identifier properties: it declares a word's (identifier's) meaning. Declarations are most commonly used for functions, variables, constants, and classes, but can also be used for other entities such as enumerations and type definitions. Beyond the name (the identifier itself) and the kind of entity (function, variable, etc.), declarations typically specify the data type (for variables and constants), or the type signature (for functions); types may also include dimensions, such as for arrays. A declaration is used to announce the existence of the entity to the compiler; this is important in those strongly typed languages that require functions, variables, and constants, and their types to be specified with a declaration before use, and is used in forward declaration. The term "declaration" is frequently contrasted with the term "definition", but meaning and usage varies significantly between languages; see below.
Declarations are particularly prominent in languages in the ALGOL tradition, including the BCPL family, most prominently C and C++, and also Pascal. Java uses the term "declaration", though Java does not require separate declarations and definitions.
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