What exactly is a C pointer if not a memory address?

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The C standard does not define what a pointer is internally and how it works internally. This is intentional so as not to limit the number of platforms, where C can be implemented as a compiled or interpreted language.

A pointer value can be some kind of ID or handle or a combination of several IDs (say hello to x86 segments and offsets) and not necessarily a real memory address. This ID could be anything, even a fixed-size text string. Non-address representations may be especially useful for a C interpreter.

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