Distinguishing between const pointers

Read it backwards ... int*-Pointer to int int const *-Pointer to const INT int * const-Const pointer to int int const * const-const pointer to const INT Now the first const can is on either side of the type so: const int *==int const * const int * const==int const * const If you want to go really crazy you can do things like this: int **-pointer to pointer to int int ** const-A const pointer to a pointer to an int int * const *-A pointer to a const pointer to an int int const **-A pointer to a pointer to a const INT int * const * const-A const pointer to a const pointer to an int ... And to make sure we is clear on the meaning of const const Int* Foo;int *const Bar //note, you actually need to set the pointer / /here because you can ' t change it later;) foois a variable pointer to a constant int. This is lets you a change, and the value of that. Most often this is seen with cstrings where you have a pointer to a const char . You could change which string of your point to if you can ' t change the content of these strings. This was important when the string itself was in the data segment of a program and shouldn ' t be changed. baris a const or fixed pointer to a value that can changed. This is a reference without the extra syntactic sugar. Because of this fact, usually your would use a reference where you would use a T* const pointer unless you need to allow null Pointers.

Distinguishing between const pointers