Dereferencing a pointer to constant

Question

Let\'s say we have a class called object.

int main(){
    object a;
    const object* b = &a;
    (*b); 
}

Question: b is a pointer to

Answer 1

By writing

const object* b = &a;

you declare that b is a pointer (*) to a const of type object, to which you then assign the address of a. a is of type object (but not const); you are permitted to use the adress of the non-const object in place of an adress of an const object.

When you dereference * b however, the compiler can only go according to your declaration - thus *b is a const object (however you can still modify a as you like, so beware of thinking that the object b points to cannot change - it mere cannot be changed via b)