This is a question from Learn Objective-C on the Mac... Functions as pointers What I typed in, as per the recipe, was: NSString *boolString (BOOL yesNo) { if (yesNo) { return (@"YES"); } else { return (@"NO"); } } // boolString The pointer asterisk in the first line doesn't seem necessary, yet deleting it results in an error message. But what does it do? In NSString * boolString (yesNo); what seems to be going on is a function is defined as a pointer to an NSString. The function without the asterisk NSLog (@"are %d and %d different? %@", 5, 5, boolString(areTheyDifferent)); returns an NSString of YES or NO. But how can it return an NSString when it's a pointer? It might return the ADDRESS of an NSString; or if dereferenced it could return the CONTENTS of that address (an NSString such as YES or NO). Yet I see no place where it is dereferenced.