Pointer declaration in Go - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Pointer declaration

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are working with a simple program that needs to keep track of a number and also use a pointer to that number. Pointers are like notes that tell you where the number is stored in memory.

🎯 Goal: You will create a variable holding a number, declare a pointer to that number, and then print the pointer's value (the memory address) and the value it points to.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an integer variable named num with the value 42.

Declare a pointer variable named ptr that points to num.

Print the value of ptr (the memory address).

Print the value stored at the address ptr points to (the value of num).

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Pointers are used in Go to efficiently manage memory and to allow functions to modify variables outside their own scope.

💼 Career

Understanding pointers is important for Go developers working on performance-critical applications, system programming, or when interfacing with low-level code.

1

Create an integer variable

Create an integer variable called num and set it to 42.

Go

package main

func main() {
    // Create an integer variable called num and set it to 42
    // Your code here
}

Hint

Use num := 42 to create the variable.

2

Declare a pointer to the variable

Declare a pointer variable called ptr that points to the variable num using the address operator &.

Go

package main

func main() {
    num := 42
    // Declare a pointer variable ptr that points to num
    // Your code here
}

Hint

Use ptr := &num to get the address of num.

3

Print the pointer value (address)

Use fmt.Println to print the value of the pointer variable ptr (the memory address). Remember to import the fmt package.

Go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    num := 42
    ptr := &num
    // Print the value of ptr (the address)
    // Your code here
}

Hint

Use fmt.Println(ptr) to print the pointer's address.

4

Print the value pointed to by the pointer

Use fmt.Println to print the value stored at the address ptr points to by dereferencing ptr with *ptr.

Go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    num := 42
    ptr := &num
    fmt.Println(ptr)
    // Print the value pointed to by ptr
    // Your code here
}

Hint

Use fmt.Println(*ptr) to print the value at the pointer.