C# Language Pointers & Unsafe Code Introduction to unsafe code

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Example

C# allows using pointer variables in a function of code block when it is marked by the unsafe modifier. The unsafe code or the unmanaged code is a code block that uses a pointer variable.

A pointer is a variable whose value is the address of another variable i.e., the direct address of the memory location. similar to any variable or constant, you must declare a pointer before you can use it to store any variable address.

The general form of a pointer declaration is:

type *var-name;

Following are valid pointer declarations:

int    *ip;    /* pointer to an integer */
double *dp;    /* pointer to a double */
float  *fp;    /* pointer to a float */
char   *ch     /* pointer to a character */

The following example illustrates use of pointers in C#, using the unsafe modifier:

using System;
namespace UnsafeCodeApplication
{
   class Program
   {
      static unsafe void Main(string[] args)
      {
         int var = 20;
         int* p = &var;
         Console.WriteLine("Data is: {0} ",  var);
         Console.WriteLine("Address is: {0}",  (int)p);
         Console.ReadKey();
      }
   }
}

When the above code wass compiled and executed, it produces the following result:

Data is: 20
Address is: 99215364

Instead of declaring an entire method as unsafe, you can also declare a part of the code as unsafe:

// safe code
unsafe
{
    // you can use pointers here
}
// safe code


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