Question

As a beginner learning pointers, I wrote something like

int i = 1,
    j = 2,
    k;

k &= i;
i = 3;

Expecting k to point to i, however, I soon found that the mistake is that k is not a int pointer, just an int. But it compiles and run why?

Answer 1

k &= i;

is the short form for

k = k & i;

where & is bitwise and. It has nothing to do with pointers.

If you want to make k to point to i, you need to make it a pointer:

// v
int* k;

and them to make it point to i:

k = &i; // NOTE: different from k &= i;