What uses are there for pointers in C++?

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What uses are there for pointers in C++? Anonymous 03/10/15 (Tue) 15:04:41 a3f278 No.1624

Currently learning Sepples, and I'm genuinely curious about how pointers are used in a general basis. What are some situations where pointers would make your life easier, or save your ass or time? So far, I've only seen how useful it can be for iterating through shit like arrays and cstrings…

Anonymous 03/10/15 (Tue) 15:48:41 ba4b36 No.1626

>>1624
For building abstract data structures.
Also, for when passing the data is too expensive, but you really need to use a profiler and a CPU cache simulator in that case to make sure it's worth it.

Anonymous 03/11/15 (Wed) 02:45:01 5c95be No.1631

>>1626
OP here, I think I see what you mean, if I was working with or targeting a potato or working with embedded shit controlling everything 'by hand' would be that tiny bit more efficient… That's pretty cool, actually.

Anonymous 03/11/15 (Wed) 10:57:31 4255ff No.1637

>>1631
> if I was working with or targeting a potato or working with embedded shit controlling

Actually, I thought of modern full scale computers, where memory access is expensive.

Anonymous 03/13/15 (Fri) 08:42:24 3bb39d No.1668

File: 1426236143881.jpg (271.8 KB, 1024x768, 4:3, richardo.jpg)

>>1631
> if I was working with or targeting a potato or working with embedded shit

You disgust me,i bet you think tech startups are the coolest thing you fucking yuppie.

Anonymous 03/13/15 (Fri) 16:11:41 a3f278 No.1673

>>1637
Oh I see, I guess I misunderstood what you were saying. Excuse my ignorance, I'm still reading babbys first c++ books.
>>1668
y-you too

Anonymous 03/15/15 (Sun) 00:00:06 ab8e0d No.1691

File: 1426377606208.png (66.48 KB, 625x626, 625:626, bait.png)

>>1668

Anonymous 03/17/15 (Tue) 11:57:04 29652d No.1724

>>1624
Linked list
You have a pointer to the next element

Anonymous 03/19/15 (Thu) 18:03:23 0bce2f No.1747

Anything that requires indirection. That recursive data type? You're going to use pointers. Want to modify this stack allocated variable in this function? You're going to use pointers internally.

Anonymous 03/21/15 (Sat) 14:22:35 c4abfd No.1768

How about a linked list?
Function pointers, maybe?
Flyweights?
Basically everywhere that a "reference type" in managed languages are useful, plus some more.

Anonymous 04/10/15 (Fri) 17:00:05 b33ed6 No.1992

It's like references that you have in your everyday language, but on steroids.

Anonymous 04/11/15 (Sat) 00:46:21 df33de No.1998

>>1626
Since we're talking about data structures, how about structs? Can I be sure that the order of the elements in memory reflect how they are arranged in code? Could I malloc a variety of structs of varying sizes, but keep a common type on top (say, a char*) and then use that as a header?

Anonymous 04/11/15 (Sat) 03:03:29 b8145a No.2000

>>1998
I think so, yes. That is what gobject uses

Anonymous 04/11/15 (Sat) 14:12:35 802746 No.2002

>>1998
Padding bytes will be added to keep everything in 4 byte chunks but reordering isn't allowed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure_alignment#Typical_alignment_of_C_structs_on_x86

Anonymous 04/14/15 (Tue) 09:50:57 b768ae No.2044

Deletions in Linked Lists and Trees are a lot prettier if you can read pointer.

Anonymous 04/16/15 (Thu) 20:03:26 4d7663 No.2098

>>1624
Most common use is a more convenient way to generate SIGSEGV than kill(2)

Anonymous 05/06/15 (Wed) 12:40:14 a36148 No.2401

>>2098

int die() { return *(int *)0; }