dereference

    To access the thing to which a pointer points;
   to "follow" the pointer.  E.g. in C, the declarations

   	int i;
   	int *p = &i;

   declare i as an integer and p as a pointer to integer.  p is
   initialised to point at i ("&i" is the address of i - the
   inverse of "*").  The expression *p dereferences p to yield i
   as an lvalue, i.e. something which can appear either on the
   left of an assignment or anywhere an integer expression is
   valid.  Thus

   	*p = 17;

   would set i to 17.  *p++ is not the same as i++ however since
   it is parsed as *(p++), i.e. increment p (which would be an
   invalid thing to do if it was pointing to a single int, as in
   this example) then dereference p's old value.

   The C operator "->" also dereferences its left hand argument
   which is assumed to point to a structure or union of which
   the right hand argument is a member.

   At first sight the word "dereference" might be thought to mean
   "to cause to stop referring" but its meaning is well
   established in jargon.

   (1998-12-15)