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[–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

Yes, you can do crazy shit if you try hard enough, but every reasonable programmer would access foo->child->b als foo->child->b and not via that crazy LISPy expression.

By question was: Why would you have a pointer to a memory address that itself only holds a pointer somewhere else?

So far the only reasonable explanation is from @Victoria@lemmy.blahaj.zone:

  • arrays of function pointers
  • pass by reference of a pointer
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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I'm more talking about theory than practical.

    I've not developed anything in C/C++, so I don't know practical uses for a double pointer, aside from multidimensional arrays, or arrays of pointers

    My point was that, conceptually, pointers to pointers is how most complex data structures work. Even if the C representation of said code doesn't have a int** somewhere

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