different between pointer vs vtable

English

Etymology

point +? -er

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??nt?/
• Hyphenation: point?er
• Rhymes: -??nt?(?)

Noun

pointer (plural pointers)

1. Anything that points or is used for pointing.
2. A teacher's pointer, pointing stick, a rod with an arrow.

   Synonym: fescue

   Hyponym: yad

3. A needle-like component of a timepiece or measuring device that indicates the time or the current reading of the device.

   Synonyms: hand, needle

5. (hunting) A breed of hunting dog, trained to point out game.
   • 2007, American Kennel Club, The Complete Dog Book, Ballantine Books (?ISBN), page 30:

     Most of the early wirehaired pointers represented a combination of Griffon, Stichelhaar, Pudelpointer, and German Shorthair. The Pudelpointer was a cross between a Poodle dog and an English Pointer bitch; the Griffon and the Stichelhaar were composed of Pointer, Foxhound, Pudelpointer, and a Polish water dog.

6. (programming) A variable that holds the address of a memory location where a value can be stored.

   Synonym: reference

   Hyponyms: dangling pointer, function pointer, null pointer
7. (graphical user interface) An icon that indicates the position of the pointing device, such as a mouse.

   Synonym: cursor

   • 1995, Aaron Marcus, Nick Smilonich, Lynne Thompson, The Cross-GUI Handbook, Addison-Wesley ?ISBN, page 231:

     The system notifies the user of the progress of a task by changing the appearance of the pointer. System-busy pointers usually adopt a timepiece metaphor.

8. (chiefly in the plural) A tip, a bit of advice.

   Synonym: advice

1. (in combinations) Something worth a given number of points.

Translations

See also

• (programming) dereference, address

Further reading

• pointer (dog) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pointer (computer programming) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pointer (user interface) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pointer (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Petrino, Petroni, interop, protein, pterion, repoint, tropein, tropine

Dutch

Etymology

From English pointer.

Pronunciation

Noun

pointer m (plural pointers, diminutive pointertje n)

1. (programming) pointer

French

Etymology 1

point +? -er, from the past participle of poindre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pw??.te/
• Homophones: pointai, pointé, pointée, pointées, pointés, pointez
• Rhymes: -e

Verb

pointer

1. to point to/at
2. (by extension) to indicate, to show, to point out
3. to punch in, to clock in
4. (informal, takes a reflexive pronoun) to show up, turn up

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (to show up): arriver

Derived terms

• pointage
• pointer du doigt
• zéro pointé

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English pointer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pw??.t??/

Noun

pointer m (plural pointers)

1. pointer (dog)

Further reading

• “pointer” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Noun

pointer m (plural pointers)

1. pointer (breed of hunting dog)

English

Etymology

Shortening of virtual method table or virtual function table.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?vi?te?b?l/
• Rhymes: -e?b?l

Noun

vtable (plural vtables)

1. (computing, programming) A table of memory pointers to different implementations of a virtual function.
   • 2000, Robert C. Martin, More C++ gems

     This solution allows the Command executor to iterate through a collection of unrelated objects with no vtables and pick out the right method for each one.

   • 2003, John C. Mitchell, Concepts in programming languages

     Note that nonvirtual functions do not appear in a vtable.

   • 2003, Steve Heller, C++: a dialogue: programming with the C++ standard library

     The most likely result will be a crash when the code tries to use a vtable entry that contains random garbage.