C# 0 The Complete Reference

ip

 the memory address of the variable 

num

. This address is the location of the 

variable in the computer’s internal memory. It has 

nothing

 to do with the 

value

 of 

num

.

Thus,

ip

does not

 contain the value 10 (

num

’s initial value). It contains the address at which 

num

 is stored. The operation of 

&

 can be remembered as returning “the address of” the 

variable it precedes. Therefore, the preceding assignment statement could be verbalized 

as “

ip

 receives the address of 

num

.”

The second operator is 

*

, and it is the complement of 

&

. It is a unary operator that 

evaluates to the value of the variable located at the address specified by its operand. That 

is, it refers to the value of the variable pointed to by a pointer. Continuing with the same 

example, if 

ip

 contains the memory address of the variable 

num

, then

int val = *ip;

will place into