The data type is needed when dereferencing the pointer so it knows how much data it should read. For example dereferencing a char pointer should read the next byte from the address it is pointing to while an int pointer should read 2 bytes.
The data type is needed when dereferencing the pointer so it knows how much data it should read. For example dereferencing a char pointer should read the next byte from the address it is pointing to while an int pointer should read 2 bytes.