Changing address contained by pointer using function

If you want to alter the content of a variable in a function in C, pointer is a kinda variable as well, you have to pass it by pointer or indirect reference by using always & address and * dereference operators. I mean * operator is always used and preceded when changing the value of a variable.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>


void changeIntVal(int *x) {
    *x = 5;
}

void changePointerAddr(int **q) {
    int *newad;
    *q = newad;
}

void changePPAddr(int ***q) {
    int **dummy;
    *q = dummy;
}

int main() {
    int *p;
    int **pp;
    int *tempForPP;
    int a = 0;
    printf("\n The address pointing by p -> %p, pp -> %p, value of a -> %d ", p, pp, a);


    p = &a;
    pp = &tempForPP;
    printf("\n The address pointing by p -> %p, pp -> %p, value of a -> %d ", p, pp, a);

    changeIntVal(&a);        // ----
                             //    |---
    changePointerAddr(&p);   // ----  |---->  parts of what I mean
                             //    |---
    changePPAddr(&pp);       // ----

    printf("\n The address pointing by p -> %p, pp -> %p, value of a -> %d ", p, pp, a);

    return 0;

}

In C, variables are passed by value - a copy of the pointer is passed to the function. Use another pointer to the pointer instead:

void change(int **p, int *someOtherAddress)
{
    *p = someOtherAddress;
}

int a = 1, b = 2;
int *p = &a;

printf("*p = %d\n", *p);
change(&p, &b);
printf("*p = %d\n", *p);

This prints

*p = 1
*p = 2

In C, functions arguments are passed by value. Thus a copy is made of your argument and the change is made to that copy, not the actual pointer object that you are expecting to see modified. You will need to change your function to accept a pointer-to-pointer argument and make the change to the dereferenced argument if you want to do this. For example

 void foo(int** p) {
      *p = NULL;  /* set pointer to null */
 }
 void foo2(int* p) {
      p = NULL;  /* makes copy of p and copy is set to null*/
 }

 int main() {
     int* k;
     foo2(k);   /* k unchanged */
     foo(&k);   /* NOW k == NULL */
 }

If you have the luxury of using C++ an alternative way would be to change the function to accept a reference to a pointer.