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Why is dereferencing called dereferencing?
I'm just learning pointers properly, and I'd like to know why dereferencing is called that. It confused me as it sounds like you are removing a reference, rather than going via the pointer to the destination.
Can anyone explain why it is called this?
To me something like destination or pointed_to_value would make more sense.
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Dereferencing means taking away the reference and giving you what it was actually referring to. A pointer to something really means that your pointer variable holds a memory address of something . But the pointer can also be thought of as a reference to something instead.
(programming) To access the value or object located in a memory location stored in a pointer or another value interpreted as such; to access a value being referenced by something else.
So according to whoever created the Java 8 exam, dereferencing in Java is the act of reassigning a reference, rather than the act of evaluating a reference: For example: // Create an Integer object, and a reference to it.
In computer programming, a dereference operator, also known as an indirection operator, operates on a pointer variable. It returns the location value, or l-value in memory pointed to by the variable's value. In the C programming language, the deference operator is denoted with an asterisk (*).
A pointer refers to an object. Ergo, we dereference the pointer (or, get the referent of the pointer) to get the object pointed-to.
The de- prefix most likely comes from the Latin preposition meaning from; I suppose you could think of dereference as meaning "to obtain the referent (or object) from the reference."
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