The Access Operator and the Dot Operator

The access operator *

Earlier, you saw that the * character, which normally represents multiplication is also used when defining pointers. However, a difficulty with the syntax of pointers is that the same character has a third meaning: It is also used when accessing the pointee through the pointer.

When * is written before the name of a pointer, it refers to the variable that the pointer is pointing at (i.e., the pointee):