Pointer Dereference

• To "dereference" a pointer is to access the contents of the memory address that is the pointer's value
• If p is a pointer, *p is the dereference of p
• Thus * is a unary operator

int* nptr;             // declares nptr (static)
nptr = new int;        // assigns an int address to nptr (dynamic)
*nptr = 3;             // stores the value 3 at the address nptr
std::cout << *nptr;    // output is the contents of the address nptr, i.e., "3"
std::cout << nptr;     // output is the (hex) address assigned to nptr