Question

I need some help understanding pointers:

Basic Pointers:

int i = 3;           
cout << i << endl;   //prints 3
cout << &i << endl;  //prints address of i

int * p = &i;
cout << p << endl;   //prints the address p points to
cout << &p << endl;  //prints the address of p
cout << *p << endl;  //prints the value stored at the address p points to

Now the confusion:

char *buf = "12345"; 
cout << &buf[2] << endl;  //prints 345
cout << buf+2 << endl;    //prints 345
cout << *buf << endl;     //prints 1
cout << *(buf+2) << endl; //prints 3
cout << buf << endl;      //prints 12345
cout << &buf << endl;     //prints 001CFA6C

How do I print the address of buf[3]?

Answer 1

char pointers are somewhat special in the sense that historically they have been used as strings in C. C++ is mostly backwards compatible with C, so it has support for C strings. So if you print a char pointer, rather than printing the address, it prints each character in the string until it reaches a NULL char, just like in C.

To print the actual address, cast the pointer to void*.

cout << static_cast<void*>(&buf[3]) << endl;