To access the thing to which a pointer points, i.e. to follow the pointer.E.g. in C, the declarationsint iint *p = &i declare i as an integer and p as a pointer to integer.p is initialised to point at i ("&i" is the address of i - the inverse of "*").The expression *p dereferences p to yield i as an lvalue, i.e. something which can appear either on the left of an assignment or anywhere an integer expression is valid.Thus*p = 17 would set i to 17.*p++ is not the same as i++ however since it is parsed as *(p++), i.e. increment p (which would be an invalid thing to do if it was pointing to a single int, as in this example) then dereference p' s old value.The C operator "->" also dereferences its left hand argument which is assumed to point to a structure or union of which the right hand argument is a member.At first sight the word "dereference" might be thought to mean "to cause to stop referring" but its meaning is well established in jargon.(1998-12-15)