{"id":4180,"date":"2022-09-27T20:44:09","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T01:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.becomebetterprogrammer.com\/?p=4180"},"modified":"2022-09-27T20:53:26","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T01:53:26","slug":"rust-print-raw-pointer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.becomebetterprogrammer.com\/staging\/4563\/rust-print-raw-pointer\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Print a Raw Pointer in Rust?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The other day I wrote an article about the dereference unary operator<\/a> (*<\/code>) and I needed a way to explain the unary operator by first explaining about pointers in Rust, which are the memory address location of, for example, a variable. However, I didn’t know how to print the pointer of a variable, without displaying the variable’s value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To print a raw pointer in Rust, call the println!<\/code> or print!<\/code> macro and use the syntax {:p}<\/code> as part of the first string format argument. Finally, pass the variable you want to see the raw pointer as the second argument of the macro println!<\/code> or print!<\/code> .<\/strong> See the following example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

let my_number = 1;\r\nprintln!(\"my_number memory location {:p}\", &my_number);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
You can store in a variable the pointer of a variable by using the coearce reference &T<\/code> o a variable to get the raw pointer of a given variable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
let my_number = 1;\nlet my_number_pointer: *const i32 = &my_number;\nprintln!(\"my_number memory location {:p}\", my_number_pointer);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In a similar way, you can print the raw pointer of a variable by using the mutable reference &mut T<\/code> of a variable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
let mut my_number = 1;\r\nprintln!(\"my_number memory location {:p}\", &mut my_number);\n\n\/\/ or\nlet mut my_number = 1;\nlet my_number_pointer: *const i32 = &mut my_number;\r\r\nprintln!(\"my_number memory location {:p}\", my_number_pointer);<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
There are other ways to get raw pointers<\/a> such as<\/p>\n\n\n\n