pointers

Question

"The asterisk sign can be placed next to the data type, or the variable name, or in the middle." Could anyone explain this?

Answer 1

It means you can declare pointers like:
int* ptr; //next to data type
int *ptr; //next to the variable name
int * ptr; //middle

Answer 2

The asterisk sign is used to declare a pointer (the same asterisk that you use for multiplication), however, in this statement the asterisk is being used to designate a variable as a pointer.