Working With Pointers

Prefix

Pointers are returned by the & prefix.

Examples

```
'Base var
&Base fetch
#10 &Base store
 
#10 &n:inc call
```

Notes

The use of & to get a pointer to a data structure (with a word class of class:data) is not required. I like to use it anyway as it makes my intent a little clearer.

Pointers are useful with combinators. Consider:

```
:abs dup n:negative? [ n:negate ] if ;
```

Since the target quote body is a single word, it is more efficient to use a pointer instead:

```
:abs dup n:negative? &n:negate if ;
```

The advantages are speed (saves a level of call/return by avoiding the quotation) and size (for the same reason). This may be less readable though, so consider the balance of performance to readability when using this approach.