Not able to understand the notations : * and ** with pointers

Question

I have a problem with the pointers. I know what this does:

*name

I understand that this is a pointer.

I've been searching but I do neither understand what this one does nor I've found helpful information

**name

The context is int **name, not multiplication

Could someone help me?

Answer 1

^{NOTE: Without the proper context, the usage of *name and **name is ambiguous. it may portrait (a). dereference operator (b) multiplication operator}

Considering you're talking about a scenario like

• char * name;
• char **name;

in the code,

• *name

name is a pointer to a char.

• **name

name is a pointer, to the pointer to a char.

^{Please don't get confused with "double-pointer", which is sometimes used to denote pointer to a pointer but actually supposed to mean a pointer to a double data type variable.}

A visual below

As above, we can say

char value = `c`;
char *p2 = &value;   // &value is 8000, so p2 == 8000, &p2 == 5000
char **p1 = &p2;     // &p2 == 5000, p1 == 5000

So, p1 here, is a pointer-to-pointer. Hope this make things clear now.