Why Use Pointers in C? - Stack Overflow
How do function pointers in C work? - Stack Overflow
Genuine question: What’s hard about pointers?
Why pointers?
Could anyone recommend a video that provides a clear explanation of pointers in C programming? I've been struggling to understand them, and I'm looking for a resource that breaks down the concept effectively.
One common place where pointers are helpful is when you are writing functions. Functions take their arguments 'by value', which means that they get a copy of what is passed in and if a function assigns a new value to one of its arguments that will not affect the caller. This means that you couldn't write a "doubling" function like this:
void doubling(int x)
{
x = x * 2;
}
This makes sense because otherwise what would the program do if you called doubling like this:
doubling(5);
Pointers provide a tool for solving this problem because they let you write functions that take the address of a variable, for example:
void doubling2(int *x)
{
(*x) = (*x) * 2;
}
The function above takes the address of an integer as its argument. The one line in the function body dereferences that address twice: on the left-hand side of the equal sign we are storing into that address and on the right-hand side we are getting the integer value from that address and then multiply it by 2. The end result is that the value found at that address is now doubled.
As an aside, when we want to call this new function we can't pass in a literal value (e.g. doubling2(5)) as it won't compile because we are not properly giving the function an address. One way to give it an address would look like this:
int a = 5;
doubling2(&a);
The end result of this would be that our variable a would contain 10.
A variable itself is a pointer to data
No, it is not. A variable represents an object, an lvalue. The concept of lvalue is fundamentally different from the concept of a pointer. You seem to be mixing the two.
In C it is not possible to "rebind" an lvalue to make it "point" to a different location in memory. The binding between lvalues and their memory locations is determined and fixed at compile time. It is not always 100% specific (e.g. absolute location of a local variable is not known at compile time), but it is sufficiently specific to make it non-user-adjustable at run time.
The whole idea of a pointer is that its value is generally determined at run time and can be made to point to different memory locations at run time.
Function pointers in C
Let's start with a basic function which we will be pointing to:
int addInt(int n, int m) {
return n+m;
}
First thing, let's define a pointer to a function which receives 2 ints and returns an int:
int (*functionPtr)(int,int);
Now we can safely point to our function:
functionPtr = &addInt;
Now that we have a pointer to the function, let's use it:
int sum = (*functionPtr)(2, 3); // sum == 5
Passing the pointer to another function is basically the same:
int add2to3(int (*functionPtr)(int, int)) {
return (*functionPtr)(2, 3);
}
We can use function pointers in return values as well (try to keep up, it gets messy):
// this is a function called functionFactory which receives parameter n
// and returns a pointer to another function which receives two ints
// and it returns another int
int (*functionFactory(int n))(int, int) {
printf("Got parameter %d", n);
int (*functionPtr)(int,int) = &addInt;
return functionPtr;
}
But it's much nicer to use a typedef:
typedef int (*myFuncDef)(int, int);
// note that the typedef name is indeed myFuncDef
myFuncDef functionFactory(int n) {
printf("Got parameter %d", n);
myFuncDef functionPtr = &addInt;
return functionPtr;
}
Function pointers in C can be used to perform object-oriented programming in C.
For example, the following lines is written in C:
String s1 = newString();
s1->set(s1, "hello");
Yes, the -> and the lack of a new operator is a dead give away, but it sure seems to imply that we're setting the text of some String class to be "hello".
By using function pointers, it is possible to emulate methods in C.
How is this accomplished?
The String class is actually a struct with a bunch of function pointers which act as a way to simulate methods. The following is a partial declaration of the String class:
typedef struct String_Struct* String;
struct String_Struct
{
char* (*get)(const void* self);
void (*set)(const void* self, char* value);
int (*length)(const void* self);
};
char* getString(const void* self);
void setString(const void* self, char* value);
int lengthString(const void* self);
String newString();
As can be seen, the methods of the String class are actually function pointers to the declared function. In preparing the instance of the String, the newString function is called in order to set up the function pointers to their respective functions:
String newString()
{
String self = (String)malloc(sizeof(struct String_Struct));
self->get = &getString;
self->set = &setString;
self->length = &lengthString;
self->set(self, "");
return self;
}
For example, the getString function that is called by invoking the get method is defined as the following:
char* getString(const void* self_obj)
{
return ((String)self_obj)->internal->value;
}
One thing that can be noticed is that there is no concept of an instance of an object and having methods that are actually a part of an object, so a "self object" must be passed in on each invocation. (And the internal is just a hidden struct which was omitted from the code listing earlier -- it is a way of performing information hiding, but that is not relevant to function pointers.)
So, rather than being able to do s1->set("hello");, one must pass in the object to perform the action on s1->set(s1, "hello").
With that minor explanation having to pass in a reference to yourself out of the way, we'll move to the next part, which is inheritance in C.
Let's say we want to make a subclass of String, say an ImmutableString. In order to make the string immutable, the set method will not be accessible, while maintaining access to get and length, and force the "constructor" to accept a char*:
typedef struct ImmutableString_Struct* ImmutableString;
struct ImmutableString_Struct
{
String base;
char* (*get)(const void* self);
int (*length)(const void* self);
};
ImmutableString newImmutableString(const char* value);
Basically, for all subclasses, the available methods are once again function pointers. This time, the declaration for the set method is not present, therefore, it cannot be called in a ImmutableString.
As for the implementation of the ImmutableString, the only relevant code is the "constructor" function, the newImmutableString:
ImmutableString newImmutableString(const char* value)
{
ImmutableString self = (ImmutableString)malloc(sizeof(struct ImmutableString_Struct));
self->base = newString();
self->get = self->base->get;
self->length = self->base->length;
self->base->set(self->base, (char*)value);
return self;
}
In instantiating the ImmutableString, the function pointers to the get and length methods actually refer to the String.get and String.length method, by going through the base variable which is an internally stored String object.
The use of a function pointer can achieve inheritance of a method from a superclass.
We can further continue to polymorphism in C.
If for example we wanted to change the behavior of the length method to return 0 all the time in the ImmutableString class for some reason, all that would have to be done is to:
- Add a function that is going to serve as the overriding
lengthmethod. - Go to the "constructor" and set the function pointer to the overriding
lengthmethod.
Adding an overriding length method in ImmutableString may be performed by adding an lengthOverrideMethod:
int lengthOverrideMethod(const void* self)
{
return 0;
}
Then, the function pointer for the length method in the constructor is hooked up to the lengthOverrideMethod:
ImmutableString newImmutableString(const char* value)
{
ImmutableString self = (ImmutableString)malloc(sizeof(struct ImmutableString_Struct));
self->base = newString();
self->get = self->base->get;
self->length = &lengthOverrideMethod;
self->base->set(self->base, (char*)value);
return self;
}
Now, rather than having an identical behavior for the length method in ImmutableString class as the String class, now the length method will refer to the behavior defined in the lengthOverrideMethod function.
I must add a disclaimer that I am still learning how to write with an object-oriented programming style in C, so there probably are points that I didn't explain well, or may just be off mark in terms of how best to implement OOP in C. But my purpose was to try to illustrate one of many uses of function pointers.
For more information on how to perform object-oriented programming in C, please refer to the following questions:
- Object-Orientation in C?
- Can you write object oriented code in C?