In C, why can't an integer value be assigned to an int* the same way a string value can be assigned to a char*?

Question

I\'ve been looking through the site but haven\'t found an answer to this one yet.

It is easiest (for me at least) to explain this question with an example.

I

Answer 1

The problem is that you are trying to assign the address 5 to the pointer. Here you are not dereferencing the pointer, you are declaring it as a pointer and initializing it to the value 5 (as an address which surely is not what you intend to do). You could do the following.

#include 

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  int *myint, b;
  b = 5;
  myint = &b;
}