Pointers

When a memory address is used as a link between elements of a data structure it is sometimes called a pointer. In some higher level languages (such as "C") a pointer is exactly the same as a main memory address. Other languages (such as object oriented languages) require require a pointer to have more features than a raw memory address can provide. In these languages a "pointer" is more elaborate than a memory address.

For this course, let us regard "pointer" and "memory address" as exactly the same. Sometimes the word "reference" is used for the link to an element. But in Java (for example), an object reference is not a raw memory address.