A pointer is used to store the address of a variable in C. Pointer reduces the access time of a variable. However, In C, we can also define a pointer to store the address of another pointer. Such a pointer is known as a double pointer (pointer to pointer). The first pointer is used to store the address of a variable whereas the second pointer is used to store the address of the first pointer.

   Declare a pointer p1 of the integer datatype.

   Declare another double-pointer p2 of the integer datatype.

   Initialize p1 as the pointer to variable v.

   Initialize p2 as the pointer to variable p1.

   Print “Value of v using single pointer”.

   Print “Value of v using double pointer”.

      Print the value of double pointer p2.

In this article, we will see how to declare double-pointer with syntax and example, and also we will see how to use them in the C programming language. So let us start from the syntax.

In the above syntax, we can see the variable pointer_var is prefixed with two stars (**), also known as the indirection operator (*) for declaring the double-pointer.

So in general if the pointer is pointing to or referring to an object in memory then a double-pointer is a pointer that would be pointing to or referring to another point where it is pointing to an object in memory. Let us see how this exactly works by below example and pictorial form:

Let's see an example of a double-pointer.

     //This pointer pr2 is a double pointer

     /* Assigning the address of variable num to the

     /* Assigning the address of pointer pr2 to the

     /* Possible ways to find value of variable num*/

     printf("\n Value of num is: %d", num);

     printf("\n Value of num using pr2 is: %d", *pr2);

     printf("\n Value of num using pr1 is: %d", **pr1);

     /*Possible ways to find address of num*/

     printf("\n Address of num is: %p", &num);

     printf("\n Address of num using pr2 is: %p", pr2);

     printf("\n Address of num using pr1 is: %p", *pr1);

     printf("\n Value of Pointer pr2 is: %p", pr2);

     printf("\n Value of Pointer pr2 using pr1 is: %p", *pr1);

     printf("\n Address of Pointer pr2 is:%p",&pr2);

     printf("\n Address of Pointer pr2 using pr1 is:%p",pr1);

     /*Double pointer value and address*/

     printf("\n Value of Pointer pr1 is:%p",pr1);

     printf("\n Address of Pointer pr1 is:%p",&pr1);

Value of Pointer pr2 using pr1 is: XX771230

Address of Pointer pr2 using pr1 is: 66X123X1

There are some confusions regarding the output of this program, when you run this program you would see the address similar to this: 0x7fff54da7c58. The reason I have given the address in different format is because I want you to relate this program with the diagram above. I have used the exact address values in the above diagram so that it would be easy for you to relate the output of this program with the above diagram.

You can also understand the program logic with these simple equations:

In this article, we can conclude that pointers are also variables that can store values. But a pointer usually stores the value as the address of another variable. So commonly we can define double-pointer as pointer to pointer, which means a pointer stores the address of another pointer. In this way, double pointers are used in allocating the memory or assigning the value as the address of another pointer to access the value even outside the function call bypassing the reference to the argument using ** arg.

In this tutorial, we'll know what a double-pointer is and how it works.

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