difference between pointer and reference in c?

Question

what is the difference between pointer , reference and dereference in c?

Answer 1

C has pointers and you can pretty much do anything you want with those pointers, you can deference them, and you change the value of a pointer. In fact pointer arithmetic is quite common technique in C programming. In my younger days as a C programmer references was not a commonly used term when talking with other C developers.

References as a term is very commonly used with Java, C# and Object Oriented Languages. In the context of Java and Object Oriented languages a reference is a pointer to an object instance in memory. With a reference you can't do pointer arithmetic, and that is the key difference between pointers and references in my view.

Pointers allow for pointer arithmetic and dereferencing, references only allow for dereferencing and changing what the reference points to.