dereference
<programming> To access the thing to which a pointer points, i.e. to
follow the pointer. E.g. in C, the declarations
int i;
int *p = &i;
declare i as an integer and p as a pointer to integer. p is initialised to
point at i ("&i" is the address of i - the inverse
of "*"). The expression *p dereferences p to yield i
as an lvalue, i.e. something which can appear either
on the left of an assignment or anywhere an integer
expression is valid. Thus
*p = 17;
would set i to 17. *p++ is not the same as i++ however since it is parsed
as *(p++), i.e. increment p (which would be an
invalid thing to do if it was pointing to a single
int, as in this example) then dereference p's old
value.
The C operator "->" also dereferences its left hand argument which is assumed to
point to a structure or union of which the right hand argument is a member.
At first sight the word "dereference" might be thought to mean "to cause to stop
referring" but its meaning is well established in jargon.
(1998-12-15)
Nearby terms:
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