Editing Pointer (computer programming) (section)

===PL/I===
The [[PL/I]] language provides full support for pointers to all data types (including pointers to structures), [[recursion]], [[Computer multitasking|multitasking]], string handling, and extensive built-in [[subroutine|function]]s. PL/I was quite a leap forward compared to the programming languages of its time.{{citation needed|date=February 2014}} PL/I pointers are untyped, and therefore no casting is required for pointer dereferencing or assignment. The declaration syntax for a pointer is <code>DECLARE xxx POINTER;</code>, which declares a pointer named "xxx". Pointers are used with <code>BASED</code> variables. A based variable can be declared with a default locator (<code>DECLARE xxx BASED(ppp);</code> or without (<code>DECLARE xxx BASED;</code>), where xxx is a based variable, which may be an element variable, a structure, or an array, and ppp is the default pointer). Such a variable can be address without an explicit pointer reference (<code>xxx=1;</code>, or may be addressed with an explicit reference to the default locator (ppp), or to any other pointer (<code>qqq->xxx=1;</code>).

Pointer arithmetic is not part of the PL/I standard, but many compilers allow expressions of the form <code>ptr = ptr±expression</code>. IBM PL/I also has the builtin function <code>PTRADD</code> to perform the arithmetic. Pointer arithmetic is always performed in bytes.

IBM ''Enterprise'' PL/I compilers have a new form of typed pointer called a <code>HANDLE</code>.