Pointers

Notes for the required material 

• These notes can be purchased in the Student Union Copy Center at cost
• Pointers in Pascal (Leestma & Nyhoff  Section 16.2): [PowerPoint] [Acrobat]

Optional teaching material

Background / Sources of additional information

• Pascal Programming and Problem Solving by Leestma S. and Nyhoff L. 4th Edition (MacMillan Publishing Company).
• Pascal an Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming by Savitch W.J. (The Benjamin / Cummings Publishing Co., Inc.). 
• The Pascal link under the GNU website (since the U of C Computer Science department uses the GNU Pascal compiler gpc).

Teaching Tips

Some students may have already heard how difficult it can be to work with pointers.  Although this can be the case if one doesn't know what they are doing if a programmer keeps in mind the two main points stressed in the notes (pointers contain addresses and if the program is dealing with the pointer or what the pointer points to) as well as understanding how things are really working then pointers aren't as difficult as they might have heard.