Pointers in C#, Free online C# Programming Tutorial...

Pointers were present in C++ but the Java designers took them out. C# has brought them back. However, C#, pointers can only be declared to hold the memory addresses of value types. That is, we cannot have pointers for reference types. The rest is very similar to C++. This is illustrated with the help of the following example:

int i = 5;
int *p;
p = &i; // take address of i
*p = 10; // changes the value of i to 10

One major difference between C++ and C# is that the ‘*’ applies to the type. That is, as opposed to C++, in C#, the following statement would declare two pointers p1 and p2:

int * p1, p2;

Just like C++, the dereference operator ‘->’ is used to access elements of a struct type.

Keyword 'unsafe'
The keyword unsafe is used while dealing with pointers. The code dealing with pointers has to be written within the unsafe block{ }. The name reflects the risks that you might face while using it.

static void Main() {
//can't use pointers here
unsafe
{
//you can declare and use pointer here
}
//can't use pointers here
}

We can also declare a whole class as unsafe as shown below:

unsafe class Class1 {
//you can use pointers here!
}

If you wish you can declare a method as unsfe as well as shown in the following piece of code:

unsafe void MyMethod() {
//you can use pointers here
}

Next >>> Lesson No. 11: C# Pointers 2