Beginning C++, Pointer problem

[wiseguy12852]

I've got the basics down pat for pointers somewhat, I still don't understand the real purpose of a pointer. I know how to declare a basic pointer and difference it. I have some understanding of pointers with arrays and limited understanding of any sort of pointer arithmetic.

I have a 1,500 page book by Ivor Horton Visual C++ 2008, I purchased it because it's easy to understand and it covers most all areas including CLI / Win32 / and the other M??.

It's getting very advanced with pointers to functions and I already have limited knowledge of pointers, can someone help me out at all and clarify all this. I still don't even understand the point of pointers their really just variables that reference the value by absolute physical path rather than through the processor

[dc_2000]

Here's one of the uses of pointers (really simple). Say, you have an array of 20 int's that you initiated with values 1 through 20:

int array[20];
#define ARRAY_SIZE (sizeof(array) / sizeof(array[0]))

for(int i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE; i++)
{
    array[i] = i + 1;
}

and you want to pass that whole array into a function (or sometimes it's also called "a method"). In this case it will be quite "expensive" CPU-clock-wise to pass all 20 values there. That is why you pass it by reference (which is only one value), for which you get a pointer to your array inside the function:

_tprintf(_T("The sum of all elements in array is %d"), SumOfAll(array, ARRAY_SIZE));

int SumOfAll(int* pArray, int ncbArraySize)
{
    ASSERT(pArray);
    int iSum = 0;
    for(int i = 0; i < ncbArraySize; i++)
    {
        iSum += pArray[i];
    }

    return iSum;
}