char* question

[l1nuxt1l1d13]

I'm sorry if this question has been asked a million times before but the bottom line is I simply do not know what to search for to answer this question: What significance does the * have in c++?

[jsmith]

* has several meanings.

char* p;

here the * means p is a pointer to a character (ie, p is not itself a character)

*p = 'a';

here the * means to "dereference" the pointer and store 'a' in the character pointed to by p.

And then there's multiplication.