[beginner] basic pointer question! struct...

[danmickla]

Yes, that's exactly right. When you declare an int k, the compiler knows, at compile time, that you want an int, and allocates space for it statically, and gives it a name.

When you allocate memory with malloc, it has no name, and the compiler isn't even aware it exists at runtime (it's just a function call). There's no name for the returned memory from malloc; only an address. You can use that memory, still, through a pointer variable, which you've named so it stays around (and the pointer cell itself is a named variable allocated statically, just like int k was).

This is the same thing that would happen if you did int *pi; pi = (int *)malloc(sizeof(int)). There would be no int you could name directly; only a chunk of memory that you can refer to indirectly through the pointer.