Question

What do the * and & symbols mean in this code:

#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
  char *p;
  p="hello";
  printf("%s\n",*&*&p);
}

What does the printf statement do in the above program? Specifically, what does *&*&p mean?

Answer 1

The printf will print the string "hello" because & is the addressOf operator which will return the address of the pointer followed by it and * is the valueOf operator which will return the value stored in the pointer address followed by it.

So in essence, the statement *&*&p will read

valueOf(addressOf(valueOf(addressOf(p))))

which will return the string "hello" which is stored in the actual location.

Hope this would help you!