What is & and * operators in C?

• * Operator is used as pointer to a variable. Example: * a where * is pointer to the variable a.
• & operator is used to get the address of the variable. Example: &a will give address of a.

Explanation

Practical Example

The address-of operator (&) in C is used to get the memory address of a variable. Here is an example:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int x = 5;
    printf("The memory address of x is: %p\n", &x);
    return 0;
}

In this example, the variable x is initialized with the value of 5, and the address of x is printed using the address-of operator and the %p format specifier. The output would be something like "The memory address of x is: 0x7ffc6f9a6b24"

The dereference operator * in C is used to get the value stored at a memory address. Here is an example:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int x = 5;
    int *ptr = &x;
    printf("The value of x is: %d\n", *ptr);
    return 0;
}

In this example, the variable x is initialized with the value of 5, the memory address of x is stored in ptr and finally, the value stored at the memory address of x is printed using the dereference operator * and the %d format specifier. The output would be something like "The value of x is: 5"