On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, Devon H. O'Dell wrote:
> The statement:
>
> vpp = &vp
>
> is ``dereferencing'' vp. Dereferencing effectively provides the address
> in memory of a variable.
> modfunction(int *bar)
> {
>
> *bar = 3; /* Change bar to 3 */
> printf("%d\n", *bar);
> return;
> }
> modfunction(&foo);
> This time, we ``dereferenced'' our variable foo (and, on a sidenote, I
> don't know why it's called dereferencing, I think it's a horrible name
> and substitute it mentally with ``grab the address of'' whenever I see
It's called dereferencing because a pointer is a reference to something,
and dereferencing is the act of doing away with the reference
(de-referencing) and handling what is actually pointed to instead. So the
opposite of what you said really. Did you get enough sleep tonight? :-)
(but *bar = 3 in modfunction() is dereferencing bar though, if that's
what you meant.)
I have no idea what the opposite operation (&) is called. Referencing?
Nah..
Magnus