Function pointer

A function pointer (or subroutine pointer or procedure pointer) is a type of pointer supported by third-generation programming languages (such as PL/I, COBOL, Fortran, dBASE dBL, and C) and object-oriented programming languages (such as C++ and D).

Instead of referring to data values, a function pointer points to executable code within memory. When dereferenced, a function pointer can be used to invoke the function it points to and pass it arguments just like a normal function call. Such an invocation is also known as an "indirect" call, because the function is being invoked indirectly through a variable instead of directly through a fixed name or address.