Pointer Declaration and Definition

In C language, we know that all the variables should be declared before they are used. Pointer variable should also be declared before their use. The syntax to declare a pointer variable is shown below.

type *  identifier;

Type : type can be any datatype such as int, float , char etc. It may be derived or user defined data type also.
*       : The asterisk (*) in between type and identifier tells that the identifier is a pointer variable.
Identifier : Name given to the pointer variable. 

Example -1 : Consider the following declaration:
int * p;
The above declaration can be read as "p is pointer to integer variable" and this declaration informs the following points:

• The variable p is a pointer variable. So, it should contain the address of variable during execution.
• The type int refer to the type of the variable stored in pointer variable p i.e. the pointer variable p should contain address of an integer variable.

Example-2 : Consider the following declaration:
double *pd;
This declaration informs the compiler that pd is a pointer variable and can hold the address of a variable of type double.

Example-3 : In the declaration, the position of * is immaterial. For example, all the following declaration are same:
int *pa;
int * pa;
int*  pa;
Any of the above declaration informs that the variable pa is a pointer variable and it should contain address of integer variable.


Example-4 : Consider the multiple declaration as shown below:

int* pa,pb,pc;
Note : Here, we may wrongly assume that the variables pa, pb amd pc are pointer variables. This is because * is attached to int. This assumption is wrong. Only pa is a pointer variable, whereas the variables pb and pc are ordinary integer variables. For better readability, the above declaration can be written as shown below:

int *pa, pb, pc;
Now, we can easily say that pa is a pointer variable because of * operator, whereas pb and pc are integer variables and are not pointer variables. It is still better if the variable are declared in separated lines as shown below:
int *pa;
int pb;
int pc;