Putting the & operator in front of a variable is how to get the address of the variable in memory. code example

Example 1: c++ dereference a pointer

int number;
int value;
int * pNumber;

number = 5;
pNumber = &number;

assert(pNumber); // check before dereferenceing to prevent errors
value = *pNumber // Use * to dereference the pointer

Example 2: dereference pointer c++

value = *pointer // Use * to dereference the pointer