Official names for pointer operators
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Published on 2010-03-21T20:05:53Z
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What are the official names for the operators *
and &
in the context of pointers? They seem to be frequently called dereference operator and address-of operator respectively, but unfortunately, the section on unary operators in the standard does not name them.
I really don't want to name &
address-of anymore, because &
returns a pointer, not an address. (A pointer is a language mechanism, while an address is an implementation detail. Addresses are untyped, while pointers aren't, except for void*
.) The standard is very clear about this:
The result of the unary
&
operator is a pointer to its operand.
Symmetry suggests to name &
reference operator which is a little unfortunate because of the collision with references in C++. The fact that &
returns a pointer suggests pointer operator. Are there any official sources that would confirm these (or other) namings?
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