pointer in visual basic

[srirajpaul]

Is it posssible to get the address of a variable in visual basic
I mean something in c++ like
int *ptr;
int a=1;
ptr = &a;

thanks for any help that can be offered,
sriraj

[\(O\)enone]

sr********@gmail.com wrote:

Is it posssible to get the address of a variable in visual basic

Why do you want to do that? What are you trying to achieve?

--

(O)enone

[Tom Shelton]

On 2008-01-08, sr********@gmail.com <sr********@gmail.comwrote:

Is it posssible to get the address of a variable in visual basic
I mean something in c++ like
int *ptr;
int a=1;
ptr = &a;

thanks for any help that can be offered,
sriraj

Well... Technically, yes you can. But why do you want it? There
really isn't a lot you can do with it once you have it anyway, and
anything you manage to do is likely to be dangerous anyway :)

--
Tom Shelton

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

<sr********@gmail.comschrieb:

Is it posssible to get the address of a variable in visual basic
I mean something in c++ like
int *ptr;
int a=1;
ptr = &a;

There is no direct equivalent.

Depending on the situation, one of the following solutions may apply:

* Use references instead of pointers (see: reference types, value types,
operators '=', 'Is', 'IsNot').

* Declare the parameter as 'ByRef' when using p/invoke.

* Use 'Marshal.Alloc*' to reserve an unmanaged block of memory and then
use 'Marshal.Write*'/'Marshal.Copy' to copy data to the memory area. Then
you can pass around the pointer pointing to the memory location.

* Use 'GCHandle.AddrOfPinnedObject' to pin a managed object in memory
(rarely useful).

--
M S Herfried K. Wagner
M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/>
V B <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/>