TAL Programmer's Guide

9 Using Pointers
096254 Tandem Computers Incorporated 9–1
This section describes:
How to declare and initialize pointers
How to assign addresses to pointers
How to access data with pointers
How the compiler allocates storage for pointers
You can declare the following kinds of pointers:
Simple pointer—a variable into which you can store a memory address, usually of
a simple variable or array, which you can access with this simple pointer.
Structure pointer—a variable into which you can store the memory address of a
structure which you can access with this structure pointer.
Pointers can be standard or extended:
Standard (16-bit) pointers can access data only in the user data segment.
Extended (32-bit) pointers can access data in any segment, normally the automatic
extended data segment.
Other information on pointers appears in the TAL manuals as follows:
Information Manual Section/Appendix
Pointers declared inside structures TAL Programmer’s Guide
TAL Reference Manual
8, “Using Structures”
8, “Structures”
Pointer access to the upper 32K-word
area of the user data segment, to the
user code segment, or to an explicit
(user-allocated) extended data
segment
TAL Programmer’s Guide B, “Managing Addressing”
Implicit pointers (those generated by
the compiler when you declare indirect
arrays and structures)
TAL Programmer’s Guide 7, “Using Arrays”
8, “Using Structures”
Dereferencing (formerly known as
temporary pointers)
TAL Programmer’s Guide 5, “Using Expressions”