'*' can be used for pointer declaration and also as an indirection operator/valueof operator. its meaning depends on the context used.
Pointers only store addresses not values
Eg: int a = 10;
Pointer declaration and initialization, are still done with '*'int *p = &a;
OR
int *p; p = &a;
Accessing a pointer
we also access the value at the address stored in p using a '*'
int val = *p;
*p means get the value at p, it asks the question what is the value at p
if address of the variable a is 1000 for an example*p == *(&a) == *(1000) == 10*(1000) means get the value at 1000
Double Pointers
since pointers are been delclared with '*', and the left side value says the kind of value it's pointing to, the same rule applies to double pointers.
int *p means p is a pointer to an address that contains an integer value. recall that pointers stores only addresses therefore to declare a double pointer q, we start with *q
*q means q will store an address(ie q is a pointer to something) now what will it point to? it's going to point to a pointer what is the type of the pointer? in our case 'int *'
so we place 'int *' in front of *q
therefore int **q is now a double pointer
so q is a pointer to a pointer
if p is stored at an address 2000*q == *(&p) == *(2000) which means get the value of 2000 which will evaluate to 1000 because the p holds the address of the value a so to access the value a, we add another '*'*(*(&p)) == *(&a) == *(1000) == 10
recall that '*' at declaration is not the same with '*' when accessing the values(value of)
at declaration '*' says whether a variable is a pointer or a double pointer
as a value-of operator its says whether to access a pointer or pointer to a pointer
now to prove to you that pointers are so easier, let's do for a pointer to a pointer to a pointer :)
if q is been stored at the address 3000, a pointer to q will be
*r means r will store an address(a pointer to something). now what type of value will it be pointing to
'int **' this is q type
then int ***r is now a pointer to q that points to p that points to a
to access a, we do this*(*(*(3000))) *(*(2000)) *(1000) 10