A kinda silly question about asterisk

Objective-C Programming (2nd Edition) 21. Object Instance Variables and Properties
1

OK maybe it’s not kinda, it’s super silly… but it does influence my understanding…a lot

I know that in most case asterisk is used to indicate a pointer
but I also notice it is used like this

- (void) setHoldings:(NSArray *)h

So in the latter case… what does asterisk do? Is it just a part of the name? Does it indicate anything?

2

Still indicates a pointer in that context - the variable h is the name of a pointer to an array object.

3

So why not write it like

- (void) setHoldings:(NSArray)*h

sorry if I miss any important points before…

4

[quote]
so why not write it like

- (void) setHoldings:(NSArray)*h [/quote]
If you wrote it like that, you would commit a syntax error.

Objective-C is a programming language; it has its own grammar (that is, rules for syntax and semantics.)

When writing code, you need to follow the rules of that grammar without making any errors.