<h3>See: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5727/understanding-pointers">Understanding Pointers</a></h3>
<hr />
<p>In many C flavoured languages, and some older languages like Fortran, one can use <strong>Pointers</strong>.</p>
<p>As someone who has only really programmed in basic, javascript, and actionscript, can you explain to me what a Pointer is, and what it is most useful for?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>

A pointer is a variable that contains the address of another variable.  This allows you to reference another variable indirectly.  For example, in C:
```
```
// x is an integer variable
int x = 5;
// xpointer is a variable that references (points to) integer variables
int *xpointer;
// We store the address (& operator) of x into xpointer.
xpointer = &x;
// We use the dereferencing operator (*) to say that we want to work with
// the variable that xpointer references
*xpointer = 7;
if (5 == x) {
    // Not true
} else if (7 == x) {
    // True since we used xpointer to modify x
}
```
```