[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I don't understand the point (!) of your example. What part of it should I focus on? None of it appears to show me a reason for preferring to use explicit pointers.

I generated assembly for both of the examples with the relevant instructions bolded

Originally Posted by Chris27

 1 #include <stdlib.h>
 2 
 3 int main()
 4 {
 5   int *array = malloc(10 * sizeof(int));
 6   int *ptr;
 7   int i;
 8 
 9   for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
10     ptr = array + i;
11 
12   return 0;
13 }

.L2:
        cmpl    $9, -12(%ebp)
        jg      .L3
        movl    -12(%ebp), %eax
        sall    $2, %eax
        addl    -4(%ebp), %eax
        movl    %eax, -8(%ebp)
        leal    -12(%ebp), %eax
        incl    (%eax)
        jmp     .L2
.L3:

Originally Posted by The Lucas

 1 #include <stdlib.h>
 2 
 3 int main()
 4 {
 5   int *array = malloc(10 * sizeof(int));
 6   int *ptr = array;
 7   int i;
 8 
 9   for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
10     ptr++;
11 
12   return 0;
13 }

.L2:
        cmpl    $9, -12(%ebp)
        jg      .L3
        leal    -8(%ebp), %eax
        addl    $4, (%eax)
        leal    -12(%ebp), %eax
        incl    (%eax)
        jmp     .L2
.L3:

So 4 instructions are necessary for ptr = array + i; and only 2 instructions for ptr++; in this assembly language.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Isn't pass by reference exactly what Java lets you do in such cases? I guess I'm completely failing to understand what you're trying to explain here.

I Googled "java swap" and this site explains it pretty well. Basically when you pass by reference to a function in Java it gives the function a new (different) reference to the object and there is no way to change the original reference in the passing function. In C++, the pointer is like an absolute reference (memory location) that is the same everywhere and you can even use pointers to pointers (no references to references in Java).