Polymorphic Data Structures in C/Glossary

yes yes A Address The location in memory where a variable is stored. Address-of Operator The ampersand (&), used to reference a variable's address instead of its value. Argument A variable passed to a function. The term argument is generally reserved for variables passed to main() at runtime, usually from the command line interface; see parameter. D Dereference Operator The asterisk (*), used to access the value that a pointer points to as opposed to the pointer itself. Dereference-Member Operator A hyphen, followed by a greater-than sign (->), used to access the members of a union or structure through a pointer to that construct. G Global Variable A variable declared independently of a function. Global variables are accessible anywhere in a program. L Local Variable A variable declared in a function's definition. Local variables can only be used in the function that declared them. M Member Operator The period (.), used to access members of a union or structure. P Parameter An argument passed to a function for processing. Parameters are not changed in the calling function, but rather they are copied and stored locally in the called function's runtime stack. Pointer A variable that stores the address of another variable, eg. a variable that "points" to a value. S Static Variable A variable declared inside a function. Static variables can only be used in the function that declared them. String A sequence of characters terminated with a null byte. Represented in C as an array of chars, where the length is at least ( string_length + 1 ) to account for the null byte. T Type See variable type. V Variable A symbolic name given to a value with a known or unknown quantity. Variables always have type. Variable Type The way that the compiler interprets the bits stored at a variable, eg. what kind of data is stored and referenced by a variable.