Don't know about void pointer

[Sarfaraj Khan]

Hello Guys,

I have one query to ask you and which is related to the pointer. Basically pointers are used to access the memory location of the variable. I have little bit knowledge about the wild pointer, but don't know anything about the 'void pointer'. It's very strange type of pointer for me. Does anybody aware about 'Void pointer'? if yes then please share you knowledge with me. Your help would be appreciable.

[Modifier]

The void pointer is completely different than wild pointer, in this pointer we can assign any type of datatype. The void pointer used to pointe towards the raw data. And because of this the compile doesn't get any idea about the assignment of the void pointer. The void pointer works with 'unspecified type'. This can be done without any specific type casting of variable's datatype. We mostly use void pointer than wild pointer.

[Praetor]

I have one example of void pointer which is given belwo. Please study this program carefully:

void increaseF (void* dataF, int psizeF)
{
  if ( psizeF == sizeof(char) )
  { char* pcharF; pchar=(char*)data; ++(*pchar); }
  else if (psizeF == sizeof(int) )
  { int* pint; pint=(int*)data; ++(*pint); }
}
int main ()
{
  char a = 'x';
  int b = 1602;
  increaseF (&a,sizeof(a));
  increaseF (&b,sizeof(b));
  cout << a << ", " << b << endl;
  return 0;
}

[Katty]

A void pointer comprises limited functionality. It is very useful when we used to cast the pointer into the other type. This type of opinter also referred as "generic pointer". The C provides an operator to retrieve the address of a variable, so that it can be stored in a pointer, which will then point to the variable. By using the void pointer, we have access to the data, both reading and writing, just as if we had worked directly on the variable pointed.

[kelfro]

When we apply void pointer, the operator * is then the dereference operator, sometimes called indirection operator. Since pointers are part of the C language it is almost impossible to understand without practice, writing a function whose role is to share the values of two variables passed as parameters. We can not change the fact that the passing parameters is by copying it is set by the C standard, and can not be otherwise.

[Zecho]

Example of void pointer:

int nValuer;
float fValuer;

struct akh
{
int nValue;
float fValue;
};

akh Value;

void *pVoidr;// void pointer
pVoidr = &nValue;
pVoidr = &fValue;
pVoidr = &sValue;