On 2008-08-14 09:58-0500 Maurice LeBrun wrote: > For C & C++, a const pointer means the memory it points to cannot be altered. > The pointer can. So for example > > const char *foo = "bar"; > > (or later reassignment) is perfectly legit.
After years of dabbling at C, this pointer stuff still makes my head spin so could you expand a bit more, Maurice? What actually happens with the above statement? After the declaration of foo as a pointer to a const char is foo initialized as a pointer to the first character in the const "bar" string? Or would a better way to look at it be that all character strings like "bar" can be interpreted as pointers so the above is simply a pointer assignment? Is this a good example of the later reassignment you referred to? *foo = "whatever"; or would it be foo = "whatever"; ? The first seems consistent with the mnemonic for the declaration, but I am virtually positive the latter is correct instead since *foo would refer to the first read-only character in "bar" which would make no sense for an assignment. Thanks in advance for trying to deal with my confusion on these issues. I guess the start of my confusion all these years has been what I consider to be a rather illogical mnemonic for pointer declarations using the dereferencing operator. I guess I just got off on the wrong foot with C pointers and have never recovered. :-) Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
