Pointer * Question

I am still familiar with the use of pointers but I have been away from this for a couple years so I'm looking through many tutorials.

One question has come to mind lately and I have hesitated asking for fear of embarassment but... the only stupid question is the one you know the answer to.

What, if any, difference is there in declaring pointers in the two following manners.

// I know this is already defined... just example
struct Rect
{
int x;
int y;
int width;
int height;
};

Rect* Head;
Rect *Tail;

Does this make any difference in functionality or memory usage? I know it's almost trivial, I've been waiting for the books and tutorials I am reading to explain, it's illustrated in both formats.

Thanks for any help I receive!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Ralph_Brickley
One question has come to mind lately and I have hesitated asking for fear of embarassment but... the only stupid question is the one you know the answer to.

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There isn't such a thing as a stupid question...there are only stupid answers... :cool:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Ralph_Brickley
What, if any, difference is there in declaring pointers in the two following manners.

Rect* Head;
Rect *Tail;

---

There is no difference...except that the first pointer is named 'Head' and the second one 'Tail'... :cool:

Thank you Andreas! I figured that to be the case but I wanted to be sure. I'm downloading and purchasing large volumes of books and tutorials getting ready to embark on game programming, mostly 3D!

Just as a side comment, I would personally prefer

Code:

---

Rect *Head;

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over

Code:

---

Rect* Head;

---

simply to avoid confusion.

Keep in mind that

Code:

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Rect *Head, *Tail;  // declares two pointers

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is NOT the same as

Code:

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Rect* Head, Tail; // only declares Head as a pointer

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I agree with bluesource but again it is a matter of choice and style.

omg bluesource right on! so often i'm asked to find the error in a program and it's cuz someone did stuff like that assuming all the variables would be declared as pointers. how they got that idea is beyond me but just thought i'd chime in and say i agree 110%

What else we can do if language agrees with what they write. :)

> I have hesitated asking for fear of embarassment but... the
> only stupid question is the one you know the answer to.

And even then, sometimes it must be asked.

E.g. "Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and Charlize Theron, will one of you go out on a date with me?"

Better to ask and get shot down than to live a lifetime wondering what might have been. Specifically, what the sound of a definite "no" would have been on your eardrums.

:D

Quote:

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Originally posted by Andreas Masur
There isn't such a thing as a stupid question...there are only stupid answers... :cool:

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Let me just say that I was a teacher for several years and
THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A STUPID QUESTION!!


p.s. I am not saying that the question which started this thread
was stupid.

It helps to understand whitespace, which is essentially space characters, tabs and end-of-lines. In the C/C++ language standards, whitespace is ignored (not relevant) except for delimiting tokens. Whitespace is irrelevant to the syntax otherwise. So as far as the compiler is concerned, the sample code looks like:

Code:

---

Rect*Head;
Rect*Tail;

---

Note that whitespace is relevant in the following:

Code:

---

Rect Head;
Rect Tail;

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However the compiler does not care how much whitespace there is; just that there is whitespace between "Rect" and the variable being defined.

Quote:

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Originally posted by souldog
Let me just say that I was a teacher for several years and
THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A STUPID QUESTION!!

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I actually love Despair.com's reply on that : "There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots"

I'm not saying this applies to any of you though ;)