pointers

Standard C really has no such thing. It is an addition done in compilers targeting 8086 CPUs. There really is little need to use it today unless you are using dinosaur C compilers like Turbo C/C++.

Near pointers - Pointers to memory within same segment and thus has only offset.
Far pointers - Pointers to memory within another segment and thus contains both segment selector and offset.

Hey chandru do you mean pointers are obslete nowadays??
I have the book "Let us C" 5th ed. and the author seems to emphasise a lot on pointers as if they are very important. So wh did he stressed so much if they are obselete???

He meant the near and far pointer concepts are obsolete now. Pointers are essential, and will never be removed from C/C++.

Exactly. I meant only about the idea of near and far pointers. Pointers themselves will no become obsolete any time soon.

what are near and far pointers??

^^ See my first reply.

u don't generally use near and far pointers in c++.

Near uses 2 bytes, and Far uses 5 bytes, AFAIK.

^^ i'm not very sure of that !!

btw what kind of programs make use of the near n far ptrs ?? i've never made any use of those stuff

n6300 said:

^^ i'm not very sure of that !!

btw what kind of programs make use of the near n far ptrs ?? i've never made any use of those stuff

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now a days we dont use these types of pointers much
they were used earlier
if you want to read more about them
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_pointer
*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_memory_model