Question

i’m self-teaching c++ and i get how pointers work. but the doc i’m using is quite literal and the examples don’t really go into why or when pointers would be used. a couple of real world examples would help me retain the knowledge.

Answer 1

You use pointers when you want your objects to exist longer than the current stack. You can also use them to avoid copying objects into containers.

// TODO: Remember to call DeleteObjects() when you're done here!!
std::vector<MyObject*> Objects;

void Test()
{
    MyObject *const pObject = new MyObject();
    Objects.push_back(pObject);
}

void DeleteObjects()
{
    std::vector<MyObject*>::iterator it = Objects.begin(), itEnd = Objects.end();
    for (; it != itEnd; ++it)
    {
        delete *it;
    }
    Objects.clear();
}