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Pointers and Memory Allocation

• The special value NULL indicates that a pointer doesn't point anywhere.
• Instead of leaving pointers uninitialized, you should always set them to NULL when you define them.

  Employee* boss = NULL; // will set later
  . . .
  if (boss != NULL) name = boss->get_name(); // OK
  

• You cannot dereference a NULL pointer.

  Employee* boss = NULL;
  string name = boss->get_name(); // NO!! Program will crash
  

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