Chapter 10: Pointers

Chapter Goals

• To learn how to declare, initialize and use pointers
• To become familiar with dynamic memory allocation and deallocation
• To use pointers in common programming situations that involve optional and shared objects
• To understand the relationship between arrays and pointers
• To be able to convert between string objects and character pointers

Pointers and Memory Allocation

• The C++ run-time system can create new objects for us.

  new Employee

• When we create a new object, a memory allocator finds a storage location for the object.
• The memory allocator keeps a large storage area, called the heap, for that purpose.
• The heap is a flexible pool of memory that can hold values of any type.
• When you allocate a new heap object, the memory allocator tells where the object is located, by giving you the object's memory address.
• To manipulate memory addresses, you need to use a pointer.

Syntax 10.1 new Operator

new type_name
new type_name(expression1, expression2, . . . , expressionn)

new Time
new Employee("Lin, Lisa", 68000)

Syntax 10.2 Pointer Variable Definition

type_name* variable_name;
type_name* variable_name = expression;

Employee* boss;
Product* p = new Product;

Pointers and Memory Allocation

• Pointers are declared by placing an * after the typename.

  Time* deadline;

• Pointers hold the location of an object (memory address), not the actual object itself.
• To create a new object, you use the new command.

  deadline = new Time;

• You can also call the new command in conjunction with a constructor to initialize the object.

  Employee* boss = new Employee("Lin, Lisa", 68000);

• To access the object that a pointer points to, the object must be dereferenced:
  • Use * to access the actual object.
  • Use -> to access methods of the object.

  raise_salary(*boss, 10);
  string name = boss->get_name(); // abbreviation of (*boss).get_name()

• The dot operator has a higher precedence than the * operator:

  string name = *boss.get_name(); // Error
  string name = (*boss).get_name(); // OK

Syntax 10.3 Pointer Dereferencing

*pointer_expression
pointer_expression->class_member

*boss
boss->set_salary(70000)

• The special value NULL indicates that a pointer doesn't point anywhere.
• Instead of leaving pointers uninitialized, you should always set them to NULL when you define them.

  Employee* boss = NULL; // will set later
  . . .
  if (boss != NULL) name = boss->get_name(); // OK

• You cannot dereference a NULL pointer.

  Employee* boss = NULL;
  string name = boss->get_name(); // NO!! Program will crash

Deallocating Dynamic Memory

• When you make a variable of a certain type, the object is allocated on the run-time stack. This object automatically goes away when the program leaves the block in which the variable is allocated:

  void f()
  {  Employee harry; // memory for employee allocated on the stack
     . . . 
  
  } // memory for employee object automatically reclaimed

• Value that are allocated on the heap do not follow this automatic allocation mechanism. You must reclaim the memory using the delete operator.

  void g()
  {  Employee* boss; 
        // 1-st allocation: pointer variable allocated on the stack (name boss)
     boss = new Employee(. . .);
        // 2-nd allocation: employee object allocated on the heap (no name!)
     . . .
     delete boss; // memory for employee object manually reclaimed
  } // memory for boss automatically reclaimed

Syntax 10.4 delete Expression

delete pointer_expression

delete boss;

• Reclaiming a pointer variable does not automatically reclaim the object to which it points.
• (Common Error 10.4) A memory block that is not deallocated is called a memory leak.
• Leaked memory can cause the heap to run out of memory.
  • Program crashes.
  • Computer freezes up.
• When a pointer is defined it points to a random address; using this random address causes an error.

  Employee* boss;
  string name = boss->get_name(); // NO!! boss contains a random address

• After you delete the value attached to a pointer, you can no longer use that address.

  delete boss;
  string name = boss->get_name(); // NO!! boss points to a deleted element

• (Common Error 10.3) Such pointers are called dangling because they do not point to a valid object.

Common Uses for Pointers (Optional Attributes)

• One use for pointers is optional attributes.
• If the attribute is needed, the pointer is set to the address of the object; otherwise the pointer will be set to NULL.
• Example: If a particular department has a receptionist, then the pointer will be set to the address of an employee object. Otherwise, the pointer will be the special value NULL.

  class Department {
   . . .
  private:
     string name;
     Employee* receptionist;
  };

• This is better than allocating space for an object that might not be used.

  class Department  {     // modeled without pointer
   . . .
  private:
     string name;
     bool has_receptionist;
     Employee receptionist;
  };

Common Uses for Pointers (Sharing)

• Another common use of pointers is sharing.
• Rather than duplicating objects, we can use pointers to share the object.
• Pointers are useful to model a "n:1" relationship, in which a number of different variables share the same object.
• Example: Many departments may have a receptionist and a secretary. In some departments, this is the same person.

  class Department {
   . . .
  private:
     string name;
     Employee* receptionist;
     Employee* secretary;
  };

• Sharing is particularly important when changes to the object need to be observed by all users of the object.

  Employee* tina = new Employee("Tester, Tina", 50000);
  Department qc("Quality Control");
  qc.set_receptionist(tina);
  qc.set_secretary(tina);
  tina->set_salary(55000);
  

• Without using pointers, changing Tina's salary would not update the information in the receptionist or secretary attribute.

Common Uses for Pointers (department.cpp)

Arrays and Pointers

• There is an intimate connection between arrays and pointers in C++.
• The name of an array is a pointer to the starting element.

  int a[10];
  int* p = a; // now p points to a[0];
  *p = 12;    // same as a[0] = 12;

• You can add an integer to offset to the pointer to point to another array location (pointer arithmetic).

  *(a + 3) means the same as a[3]

• This relationship is called the array/pointer duality law. For any integer n,

  *(a + n) means the same as a[n]

• When an array is passed into a function, it is actually a pointer to the starting element of the array.
• The const modifier indicates that the pointer a can be used for reading, not for writing.

  double maximum(const double a[], int a_size)
  {  if (a_size == 0) return 0;
     double highest = a[0];
     int i;
     for (i = 0; i < a_size; i++)
        if (a[i] > highest) highest = a[i];
     return highest;
  }
  
  double data[10];
  ...  // Initialize data
  double m = maximum(a, 10);

• The declaration gives the illusion that an entire array is passed to the function, but in fact the function receives only the starting address of the array (a pointer parameter).

  double maximum(const double* a, int a_size)
  {  /* identical code as above yields same results */
     . . . 
  }

• It is essential that the function also knows where the array ends. The second parameter indicates the size of the array that starts at a.
  

Pointers to Character Strings

• C++ inherits a more primitive level of string handling from the C language, in which strings are represented as arrays of char values.
• We don't recommend that you use character pointers or arrays in your programs, but you occasionally need to interface with functions that receive or return char* values.

  char s[] = "Harry";

  s[0]	s[1]	s[2]	s[3]	s[4]	s[5]
  'H'	'a'	'r'	'r'	'y'	'\0'

• Literal strings are stored inside char arrays.

• The string class has a constructor string(char *) that you can use to convert any character pointer or array to a safe an convenient string object.

  char* p = "Harry";
  string name(p); // or string name = p;

• Use the c_str member function of the string class to obtain a char* pointer that points to the first character in the string object.
• The tempnam function in the standard library yields the name of a temporary file, and expects a char* parameter for the directory name.

  string dir = . . .;
  char* p = tempnam(dir.c_str(), NULL);
  string file_name(p);