When is a void pointer used? Ans. A void pointer is used for working with raw memory or for passing a pointer to an unspecified type. Some C code operates on raw memory. When C was first invented, character pointers (char *) were used for that. Then people started getting confused about when a character pointer was a string, when it was a character array, and when it was raw memory. For example, strcpy() is used to copy data from one string to another, and strncpy() is used to copy at most a certain length string to another: char *strcpy( char *str1, const char *str2 ); char *strncpy( char *str1, const char *str2, size_t n ); memcpy() is used to move data from one location to another: void *memcpy( void *addr1, void *addr2, size_t n ); void pointers are used to mean that this is raw memory being copied. NUL characters (zero bytes) aren't significant, and just about anything can be copied. Consider the following code: #include 'thingie.h' /* defines struct thingie */ struct thingie *p_src, *p_dest; /* ... */ memcpy( p_dest, p_src, sizeof( struct thingie) * numThingies ); This program is manipulating some sort of object stored in a struct thingie. p1 and p2 point to arrays, or parts of arrays, of struct thingies. The program wants to copy numThingies of these, starting at the one pointed to by p_src, to the part of the array beginning at the element pointed to by p_dest. memcpy() treats p_src and p_dest as pointers to raw memory; sizeof( struct thingie) * numThingies is the number of bytes to be copied.