C Simple Pointer Interview Questions

76. What is meant by Pointer in C?

A Pointer is a variable that holds the address of another variable. In C, many complex tasks can be done only with pointers. Refer For More C Pointers

77. What are the advantages of using pointer?

• Without pointers, dynamic memory allocations are impossible.
• When data type of particular data is unknown, then pointer can be used to access the data regardless of data types as pointers holds only address which is of integer data type.
• Pointers are not just to refer existing variable with its address. Pointers are to interact directly with the hardware, simply one cannot write a data to the device drive without using pointers.
• Pointers can be used to change the value permanently to a variable because pointer access the address of a variable.
• Pointer provides an alternate way to access array elements.
• Pointers are used to create complex data structures.

78. What are the disadvantages of using pointer?

• Pointers are unsafe because its easy for a pointer to get you wrong.
• Uninitialized pointers will cause segmentation fault.
• Improper handling of pointers in dynamic memory allocation will leads to memory leaks.
• Its very hard to debug pointer issues. So using pointers effectively will reduce head ache.
• Though pointer syntax looks awesome i.e) *ptr. when you start appending more asterisks with pointer variable will makes you insane.
• Pointers are 2X time slower than normal variables.

79. What is pointer to pointer?

A pointer variable containing the address of another pointer variable is known as pointer to pointer or a chain of pointers. The pointer variable that holds the address of another variable should be declared with additional asterisk (*). Refer For More C Pointer to Pointer

80. What is void pointers?

C programming doesn't provide any generic pointer to pointer type. Instead it provides generic pointer type called void pointer. Thus void pointer is most commonly called as general purpose pointer. Refer For More C Void Pointers