# Use of \`pointer\`

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/use-of-pointer/8849>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [February 2, 2018, 1:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/use-of-pointer/8849 "2018-02-02T13:58:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![ExpandingMan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/expandingman/32/866_2.png) [@ExpandingMan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ExpandingMan)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2018, 3:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/use-of-pointer/8849/4 "2018-02-03T15:14:33Z")

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> [@A plea for int overflow checking as the default](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/a-plea-for-int-overflow-checking-as-the-default/3338/65):
>
> It is likely well-past time for the pointer function to be deprecated and removed, but so far not especially high-priority.

I am rather nervous that deprecating pointers would make some useful things impossible to do in Julia, even in principle. I’m working on something lately where I need to be able to `reinterpret` data from a `Vector{UInt8}` as another data type on demand. It seems that if I were to actually do this with `reinterpret`, I would have to allocate an array twice: once to copy a subset of the `Vector{UInt8}` and again to reinterpret it. With pointers and `copy` these can basically both be done in the same step. There are some other similar, subtle things that one might need to do especially in I/O applications that seem very difficult to do efficiently without pointers.

I apologize that this has nothing to do with this thread. At some point I’m going to open a new thread about whether I can achieve these things without pointers.

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