Why use double indirection? or Why use pointers to pointers?

Question

When should a double indirection be used in C? Can anyone explain with a example?

What I know is that a double indirection is a pointer to a pointer. Why would I ne

Answer 1

One reason is you want to change the value of the pointer passed to a function as the function argument, to do this you require pointer to a pointer.

In simple words, Use ** when you want to preserve (OR retain change in) the Memory-Allocation or Assignment even outside of a function call. (So, Pass such function with double pointer arg.)

This may not be a very good example, but will show you the basic use:

void allocate(int** p)
{
  *p = (int*)malloc(sizeof(int));
}

int main()
{
  int* p = NULL;
  allocate(&p);
  *p = 42;
  free(p);
}