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[Reply #15 on:]

Well, look at it like this. Void pointers are like pointers to atoms. That's only useful if you know how many atoms are in something (like a cat). But a cat* pointer points at a cat. And if you add one, it points to the next cat. You don't have to care how many atoms are in the cat. Now that's useful!

[Reply #16 on:]

I've never quite been convinced by the need for a void pointer type - a char is by definition the smallest addressable element, so is the smallest thing you can have a pointer to.
I guess void just anonymises (if such a word / verb exists) it.

[Reply #17 on:]

void pointers aren't overly useful, they are just required. Memory allocation systems don't allocate to a type, but an address with a data range, which is a void pointer. ( explicit 'operator new' over plain old 'new' )

Also before templates were fully formed, people wrote functions like

Code:

void DoStuff( void *v_Data, int i_Size )
  {
    //Do stuff
    return;
  }

With the only benefit for using it over typed pointers was to remove casting everything to a standard type. ( Any pointer type can be implicitly cast to void* but not the other way around ).

Also there is this example.

Code:

void Foo(void (*fp)(void *), void *q) {
  fp(q);
}

This use of void*allows Foo to take a pointer to a function and handle any type of argument.

[Reply #18 on:]

but that's really just a fiction that is only enforced by the compiler.

And a darned good thing it (generally) is, too.