<p>I'm fresh out of college and have been working in C++ for some time now.  I understand all the basics of C++ and use them, but I'm having a hard time grasping more advanced topics like pointers and classes.  I've read some books and tutorials and I understand the examples in them, but then when I look at some advanced real life examples I cannot figure them out.  This is killing me because I feel like its keeping me from bring my C++ programming to the next level.  Did anybody else have this problem? If so, how did you break through it?
Does anyone know of any books or tutorials that really describe pointers and class concepts well?
or maybe some example code with good descriptive comments using advanced pointers and class techniques?
any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>

Pretend a pointer is an array address.
```
```
x = 500; // memory address for hello;
MEMORY[x] = "hello"; 
print  MEMORY[x];
```
```
its a graphic oversimplification, but for the most part as long as you never want to know what that number is or set it by hand you should be fine.
Back when I understood C I had a few macros I had which more or less permitted you to use pointers just like they
were
an array index in memory. But I've long since lost that code and long since forgotten.
I recall it started with
```
```
#define MEMORY 0; 
#define MEMORYADDRESS( a ) *a;
```
```
and that on its own is hardly useful.  Hopefully somebody else can expand on that logic.